Heartbreak
by lordtrayus
Summary: Chris is miserable being trapped in the past, where his own family despises him. However, when things start to improve, can he tell them all the truth, and tell the one he loves the most who he is? Or will his silence just make things worse? AU


**Disclaimer: I do not own Charmed**

Heartbreak

Chris Perry looked up at the sky as the cold wind and rain battered at him as he sat on top of the Golden Gate Bridge. His heart was heavy as he looked out at the cloudy sky. It was getting harder. For the past several months he had been trying desperately to try and find the evil that got to his older Wyatt and turned him into the worst force of evil since the Source. The reason was that Wyatt was his older brother, and Chris had come from a very dark future in order to save him.

Chris was Wyatt's little brother, and he had arrived in order to defeat the Titans, who had ruled the heavens in Ancient Greece. He had helped save one of his aunts, Paige, from the Titan Meta. However, despite that and his continued showings that he was on their side, she and her sisters still didn't trust him. Chris had known when he had arrived and had worked his way in as their new Whitelighter that the girls would be suspicious. It also didn't help that Piper, his mother, blamed him for the collapse of her marriage to Leo. Chris sighed. He hadn't wanted to break them up, but after the Titan threat had ended, in his timeline Leo had taken up the position of Elder anyway. All Chris had done was accelerate the process.

He looked forlornly at the sky. He had never wanted to hurt his mother. His father he would gladly hurt any day. Leo had never been there for Chris when he was growing up. If Wyatt wanted him, even to help him with homework, he would be there. But not for Chris. He had once called on Leo for three hours on his birthday, trying to get his dad to remember his special day. He'd been about eight at the time. Piper had found him at three oclock in the morning, still calling desperately for his father...

_Piper walked into the living room. Chris' new game was on top of the TV, he'd been playing with Wyatt before she'd sent them to bed. The room was dark, and mostly quiet, except for a quiet sniffle. Curious, Piper entered the living room, to see Chris, her baby boy, curled up on the sofa, sobbing._

"_Chris honey, what's wrong?" she asked, hugging him to her. _

_Chris sniffed._

"_I...I came down when you went to sleep. I just wanted to talk to my dad. I called for him. I called him for ages mommy. But he never came." Chris said, sad disappointment permeating his voice._

_Piper looked at her son, her heart broken. Leo never had any time for Chris. Piper was beginning to suspect that he didn't even know what his son's name was. She looked at her youngest son with tear filled eyes, and started to rock him gently, making gentle noises in his ear._

"_Oh sweetie, its ok." She soothed, rocking him gently and brushing away his tears._

"_Its not as if I wanted anything...I just wanted to see him." Chris sniffed as he snuggled into her._

_Piper felt her heart wrenching with her son's every word. Leo had a lot to answer for. He was Chris' father too. He always responded to Wyatt. But he ignored Chris. And Piper was quickly beginning to hate him for it. Her little boy shouldn't have to come down at the dead of night just to try and talk to his dad. His dad should be there. His dad should be there for his little boy. She knew what it was like to have an absentee dad. And she missed his presence all the time when she was young. True, Wyatt missed not having his dad around all the time, but when Leo came down he would make a point of talking to Wyatt and catching up with him. And he would totally ignore Chris, even if they were in the same room. _

"_Chris honey...it's alright. How long have you been down here baby? You're frozen." She said, holding him all the tighter._

"_Since twelve I think." Chris admitted, knowing his mother could never yell at him._

_Piper looked at the clock. It was three in the morning. A powerful feeling of rage swept through her body. Her little boy had been calling for his dad for three hours, and he hadn't even had the decency to respond? She snarled slightly, and Chris recoiled, thinking she would finally yell at him._

"_Oh peanut its not you I'm angry at. It's your father. He doesn't deserve you." She whispered into his ear._

"_He's my dad." Chris said stubbornly, his little jaw set, just like hers did when she refused to be moved._

"_Chris..." she said, but he had turned to give her the look._

_The look was Chris' special weapon. His brilliant green eyes would go wide and soulful and trusting, and he knew full well that as soon as he did that to his mother she was defenceless against him._

"_Stop that. You know I cant resist it." She said, cuddling him._

"_Sorry I woke you up mommy." He said sadly._

_She stroked his hair lovingly._

"_It's ok baby. Now, let's get you to bed. And then you can think what you're going to spend your birthday money on." She encouraged._

_Chris nodded and she took his hand and started to lead him upstairs._

"_Maybe I'll get uncle Henry to go with me. Dad probably cant make it..." Chris said, and the sadness in his little voice shattered Piper's heart, and she had to raise a hand to her mouth to stifle her tears._

Strangely, Chris felt bad about that day, not because he'd been rejected by Leo again, but because he'd made his mom cry over him. As she was the only parent he'd ever known, he had loved her more than anything. When he'd first arrived from the future and saw her, he'd wanted nothing more than to rush to her and hug her, and tell her how much he had missed her and hear her tell him everything was ok. But he couldn't have. She didn't know who he was. And considering she blamed him for the breakup, every time he appeared in the house he winced under her harsh gaze, devoid of all warmth and love. And that was hard. His mother looking at him in such a way hurt him. In fact, Paige and Phoebe looking at him in such a way hurt him.

But it didn't matter. He had known when he had come back that he would be met with hostility and possibly hatred. It didn't matter. His feelings didn't matter, as long as he protected his big brother from evil, so he could be the good person Chris had grown up with. Like once when he'd been picked on at school...

_Chris was scuffing his feet as he walked home, looking at the ground miserably. Timmy Robins, a boy a year older than him, had been teasing him about having no dad, and saying that he didn't have a nice family, and that they didn't love him. Normally, it wouldn't bother Chris, but the fact that his father ignored his very existence got him thinking that the boy might be speaking the truth. And then he had gone on to say that Chris was sappy and always depended on his big brother to help him...which was also true. He continued walking, downcast, when he heard steps behind him, and he turned to see his older brother. Wyatt was a year older than he was, and he was looking very concerned about his brother._

"_Chris, what's up?" he asked worriedly._

_Chris shrugged half-heartedly._

"_Nothing." He lied, not wanting to rely on his brother._

"_Chris, come on, you look miserable. Tell me." Wyatt urged._

"_Well Timmy Robins said the truth, and it just...hurt, hearing it from someone else." Chris said sadly._

"_What do you mean he said the truth bro?" Wyatt asked, his eyes narrowed in concern._

_Chris sniffed._

"_That I didn't have a dad that loved me and that we weren't a proper family."_

_Wyatt looked resentfully up at the sky, angry at his dad, who was after all the cause of Chris' misery now. He then pulled Chris to him in a hug._

"_Chris...yeah, we may not have a dad. So maybe he reckons we don't have a good family. But we do! Mom loves you to bits, and so do I. And besides, he doesn't have two great aunts like we do. So, he might be right that we don't have a normal family as he sees it because dad isn't around. But we have a great mom and two brilliant aunts. And that's more than enough for anyone. And you've got me too. And the cat." Wyatt added with a grin, knowing how much his brother loved the cat._

_Chris smiled slightly._

"_Thanks bro." He said as they walked up the street._

"_And next time he starts on you, just say this under your breath..."_

Chris smiled slightly as he recalled the memory. Wyatt had told him a spell to boost his confidence, which eventually gave Chris the courage he needed to smack Timmy on the nose. Timmy was so shocked he never bothered him again. When Piper found out that Chris had been bullied, she was furious, and only Phoebe's persuasion had stopped her going and blowing Timmy to bits. She then heard Chris say the little rhyme Wyatt had told Chris, and figured out it was a spell. She had been quite amusing to watch as she debated with herself whether to yell at Wyatt for using magic in public and getting his brother to use magic, or to thank him for stopping him getting bullied.

Chris wanted his loving big brother back. And for that, he was willing to do anything...even if it meant that the rest of his family hated him. But that was getting harder. While his job was still the most important thing, he wasn't sure if he could keep up with the hostility anymore. He had heard the entire story about Cole, and he was willing to bet that even he had been treated better than he had been at times. Chris wouldn't admit it to himself, but he missed them. He missed his mother, who was killed when he was fourteen. He missed his aunt Phoebe, the empath, the one who always knew what was wrong with him. And he missed his aunt Paige, the one who doted on him and loved him nearly as much as his mother. He wanted to tell them who he was, but considering how much he'd had to lie, they would just believe he was lying again.

It wasn't that he blamed them. They had no reason to trust him, no reason to like him, and the fact that he was connected to the collapse of Piper's marriage made it all the worse for him. He wouldn't trust him under those circumstances. But he'd shown Piper especially, time and time again, that he was on their side, and he had defended Wyatt with them and guided them. Sometimes he was surprised that he hadn't told them where to get off, sometimes they were so bad. Yes, he lied to them a lot, but he had never hurt them, and he had protected Wyatt, so why couldn't they cut him some slack?

He wondered if part of his problem was the fact that he was letting it get to him. He'd seen Piper and his aunts playing with baby Wyatt and he didn't feel jealous, just...neglected. He knew he had no one to blame but himself, but it still hurt. Sometimes he just wanted to say 'what about me' just like he had once said to his dad. But his mission kept him from doing so. And also, he was afraid he would get the same response he had gotten then. None.

Sighing, and wiping tears from his eyes that he hadn't known had formed, he orbed to go to talk to the only person who knew who he truly was. The only problem was...she was already dead.

XX

Paige moved her strawberry blonde hair behind her ear. She was looking at a drawing she had found when she had gone to P3 looking for Chris. The picture, in and of itself was actually quite good, and looked quite realistic. The picture showed a young man, who Paige took to be Chris, standing away from her and her sisters, and baby Wyatt. And he was looking dejected and hurt in the picture. Paige sighed as she looked at it. She felt an enormous feeling of guilt rising in her.

Yeah, Chris was a shady guy. But he was hard working and she knew he was loyal to her and her sisters, and he had proved many a time that he only wanted to help them, and protect baby Wyatt. And in hindsight, Paige supposed that her sisters hadn't really been nice to him. Fair enough, he kept secrets from them and didn't tell them everything, which did infuriate the sisters endlessly. But still, considering how often he had proved his good intentions, she was beginning to feel like they should give him a break...and apologise.

Phoebe entered, and looked at the drawing.

"Did you draw that sweetie?" she asked, as she headed over to the fridge.

Paige shook her head.

"No, I think Chris did." She said sadly, passing it to her sister as she sat at the table.

Phoebe looked at the picture, and she pursed her lips, and her mouth fell into an uncertain line.

"Oh." She said, looking guilty.

Phoebe looked at the drawing and frowned. Chris looked so dejected in it, so unloved, it made her heart ache for him.

"Yeah...we haven't been the nicest of people to the kid have we?" Paige asked uncertainly.

Phoebe looked at the picture sadly.

"Where did you get this?" she asked, hoping it meant something else.

"Chris' room at P3. I went there to ask him about something and I found that on the floor." She said.

Phoebe winced.

"Yeah...we haven't been the nicest of charges to him either. I mean, he doesn't tell us anything and keeps things from us, and I'm pretty sure he lies to us a fair bit as well, but...he doesn't deserve the way we've been treating him. Hell, I treated Cole better than I've treated Chris sometimes." Paige said, looking upset.

Phoebe sighed.

"Well if I remember rightly from my psychology lessons, this means that he doesn't feel included and abandoned. And now that I come to think of it, we probably are the only people he knows here. And with us hardly talking to him, or sending him dirty looks or making snide comments, he's bound to feel a bit...upset." Phoebe said sadly.

Paige took the picture from her, looking at it, guilt filling her. She supposed they owed him an apology.

"I'll go and look for him." She said, getting up.

"Will I tell Piper?" Phoebe asked curiously.

"Nah, better not. She still blames him for losing Leo." Paige said.

Phoebe looked at the floor shiftily.

"You don't think he's to blame anymore? That's new." Paige said.

Phoebe took a deep breath.

"No. I'm actually beginning to think that Leo and Piper...were going to break up. Like you said, losing the idol when we went into Piper's memories changed history, so I don't know, maybe that meant that they weren't going to stay together. And I reckon after everything he did, Leo would have been made an Elder as a reward." Phoebe said gently.

"So you reckon it was always going to happen, them splitting up?" Paige asked, unconvinced.

"I'm saying its possible sweetie." Phoebe answered.

Paige frowned, then sighed.

"I'm going to go and find him, try to get him to explain this. Night." She said, and orbed off.

Phoebe looked at where her sister had disappeared and shifted guiltily. Piper would probably scoff if she told her they'd hurt Chris by their indifference to him. She didn't think much of their new Whitelighter. It wasn't as if she or the others hated him, they just...didnt treat him well. And now that she came to think of it, that sort of behaviour would get incredibly upsetting after a while. Come to think of it, she was surprised he hadn't told them to back off by now. Maybe he figured they wouldn't listen. Or maybe they'd upset him so much that he felt he deserved it. With that thought in mind, she headed to bed, feeling sorry for Chris and what she and her sisters had done to him. She would apologise to him in the morning. Although how she would tell him that she had treated her ex-demon husband from hell a bit better than she had treated him, she didn't know.

"I'm sorry Chris." She whispered as she headed upstairs.

XX

Chris sniffed slightly as he arrived in the cold hall of remembrance at night. Above him was a large wooden plaque marked: **Prudence Halliwell 1970-2001**.

He leaned against the plaque and cried slightly, letting his emotions show for a change. He sobbed, his body shaking as he let the continuing injustice get to him yet again. He was stronger than this. He supposed that because he was back in the past, with no one to turn to, and the fact that he couldn't tell his family who he was, was making him weak and soft. Which was just another reason not to tell them the truth.

"Why do you do this to yourself Chris?" a female voice asked from behind him.

He wiped the tears from his eyes and turned around to see his aunt, Prue, who was staring at him compassionately. She was a beautiful woman, with long dark hair, and a pair of green eyes, not quite as vivid as his, but full of the same cleverness and brightness. She was clad all in white and glowing slightly.

"Hey aunt Prue. What are you doing here?" he asked.

She smiled at him slightly and walked towards him, brushing the tear stains from his face with her thumb.

"You wouldn't have come here if you didn't want to talk to me. And to answer your question, I'm making sure my poor nephew isn't going to fall apart at the seams." She said, holding him to her.

He gratefully melted into her embrace, and he slid down the wall and she sat down beside him, letting him rest his head on her shoulder. Prue looked at her future nephew sadly as the moon shone through the windows and put him into relief. He looked so thin and drawn out, and so vulnerable, her heart was breaking just looking at him...a remarkable feat for someone who was already dead. She started stroking his hair gently as he laid on her shoulder, sniffing.

"Why do you keep doing this to yourself?" Prue asked him.

Chris sighed.

"You know why aunt Prue. I cant tell my mom who I really am, it might screw up the future." He explained resentfully.

Prue shook her head.

"Chris honey, you came back to change the future. Why not just take that little risk? You said the future is already bad. Why not tell them who you really are? It cant cause that much damage." She suggested, putting her hair behind her ears.

Chris shook his head adamantly.

"No. What would you do if some guy turned up from the future, turned your life upside down, and then blurted out that he was actually your son? Mom probably would throw me out...either that or not have me in the first place." He said, tears filling his brilliant green eyes.

Prue looked at her nephew and felt her heart break further. He shouldn't have so much on his young shoulders. At his age, he should be out partying, battling the occasional demon and figuring out what he wanted to do with his life, not trying to save the world from his evil big brother and get his family back. Ever since she had first found him sobbing beside her grave and found out who he was, she'd been watching him, and it was all she could do to keep herself going down and giving her sisters a piece of her mind about how they'd all been treating him. He'd proved his good faith by helping to save Paige, wasn't that enough?

"Chris, if you would just tell your mother who you are...all this would end. She would instantly love you, you're her son!" Prue implored him.

Chris shook his head, and Prue momentarily cursed the stubbornness that ran in the family's genes.

"I cant aunt Prue, you know I cant. Besides, the fact that I'm here, crying almost every night, shows that I'm already going soft being back here. If I tell them who I am..." he sniffed, and she hugged him to her.

"Chris, you are not going soft. You're being human! Anyone other than you would either have told them to give you a break or would have just buggered off by now! The fact that you haven't shows that you're still strong! Strong enough to keep putting up with the endless hostility you've been getting. I just wish you would let yourself believe that it could stop. Tell them, please! I don't like seeing you like this, so hurt and alone." She said caringly.

Chris smiled slightly and snuggled into her. It said a lot that when the kid's only comfort was a lady who'd been dead for three years, even if she was his aunt.

"It's necessary." He said sadly.

The earnestness in his voice made Prue's eyes water, also a remarkable feat for someone who was dead, and hence had no use for tears. Prue had a suspicious feeling that when the baby Chris came along, Piper was going to be totally powerless against the poor little boy and would love him to bits.

"Chris..." she said softly, but his only response was to snuggle tighter into her embrace. She smelt the spicy scent of his hair, the same one Piper had always had, matched with the vanilla like scent that she occasionally caught from Leo. Yes, he was definitely Piper's son.

"I saw your drawing last night." She said.

Chris shifted uncomfortably. He liked to draw. And write. He did both to relax, but he always felt that drawing was his better pastime. When he'd been growing up, the fridge had been adorned with pictures he'd drawn for his mother, and even some for Wyatt. He had even kept a pile for his dad, that he had intended to one day give to him, but he had never come for them...

"So?" he asked casually.

"Chris, I may not be an art lover, but I can tell that those pictures are representing how you really feel. Tell them!" she implored.

"No, I cant I've told you. It'll just make...everything harder." He said, sounding as though he wished it wasn't true.

"Where is it?" she asked him, hoping that she could use it to make him see how much the hostility from his mother was hurting him.

"On the table in my room." He replied.

Prue thought about it. When she had checked on him this morning, it had still been there. But when she had peeked in on him earlier on, it hadn't.

"Are you sure?" she asked.

Chris shrugged.

"It doesn't matter if mom finds it. She'll just throw it in the bin. She's like me, she hates mess." He said.

Prue was about to reply when she felt someone coming.

"Someone's coming. I love you." She said, kissing his forehead.

"I love you too aunt Prue." He said back, looking at her with his sad green eyes.

There was a glow and she was gone. Chris got to his feet and ran his hand along the plaque engraved with her name.

"Thanks for being here." He whispered.

There was a jingle from above, and he smiled slightly. He always felt a little bit better once he'd seen her. As she was the only one who knew who he actually was, she was the only one who could come close to understanding. And he knew she only wanted him to be happy, which she believed fervently would happen with all her heart once he told Piper who he really was. Chris wasn't so sure. What if Piper resented him? It's not as if she made any bones about the fact that she could give or take with him. Would she be mortified to know who he truly was? Would she not want to have him?

As such, he supposed it was better that she didn't know. Perhaps, if he was conceived, he would tell her who he was. But most likely, he would just struggle on...provided he didn't break up first.

There was a glow and Paige appeared, looking at him with concern.

"Chris?" she asked gently, seeing that there were still tears in his eyes.

"Paige, what are you doing here?" he asked defensively.

"Looking for you. What are you doing here?" she asked him gently, walking over to him and taking his hand.

Chris looked at her as though she had sprouted an extra head.

"Are you alright?" he asked uncertainly.

"Yes. It's you I'm worried about. What are you doing here?" she asked.

Chris felt strangely worried, and also slightly happier at the same time. Paige had obviously set out to find him, perhaps for a reason other than to give him a hard time. The possibility put a little warm glow into his heart.

"I come here to think. What are you doing here?" he asked curiously, hoping that she was actually here to check on him, just like she used to do in the future after his mother had been killed.

She took his hand and led him over to the small bench and sat him down on it.

"I wanted to ask you about this." She said, showing him the picture he'd drawn before.

Chris looked away, ashamed that she'd found it.

"Chris, what is it?" she asked wheedling him for an answer.

"It's nothing." He said, taking it from her.

"Chris..." Paige said knowingly.

"It's ok Paige, it doesn't matter." He said, putting it away.

He knew she wanted to help him, talk to him about it, and a part of him, a very large part of him was crying out to break down and tell her that she was really his aunt. But the other part, the part that kept his emotions in check and prevented him from saying anything was too powerful, and he knew that if he kept a clear head he could carry on protecting Wyatt.

Paige sighed quietly, then gently guided his head to her shoulder. Chris was surprised, but he allowed her to do it, but ruthlessly forced down the part of his heart that was screaming for him to tell her who he was. And he wanted to, so much. But...that would only be a distraction. And if he wanted his big brother back he had to stay strong. Regardless, he snuggled up to her, and closed his eyes as he felt her gentle, loving hands caress his cheek.

"I'm sorry Chris." She said in her gentle voice.

"What for?" he asked, wiping the small tears from his eyes.

"Chris, I don't need to be a psychologist to know that that picture was representing how hurt you are. We've treated you like crap ever since you arrived. And I suppose we never figured how much you're doing for us. You came here, leaving everyone you love behind and everything you've ever known, to come here and help us protect Wyatt. And we are grateful for that. Believe me. I'm so sorry." She said.

Chris smiled at her.

"Thank you." He said, sniffing slightly.

"Why didn't you say something?" she asked curiously.

"I knew when I came here you wouldn't trust me. It didn't bother me. I came here to do a job. I knew I would get hurt, so I just got on with it." He said sadly, not letting her know how much her apology meant to him.

"Chris..." Paige said, feeling even more guilty.

"It's ok Paige." He said as she stroked his hair.

Chris felt a lot happier than he had done earlier. At least one of his family had apologised. And he supposed he could maybe open up a little more to her...but not right now. And he still wouldn't tell her who he was, but he would at least talk to her a bit more.

"Are you ok?" she asked, affection in her voice.

"Yeah. Thank you Paige. It means a lot." He said.

Paige looked down at the young man, little more than a boy really, who had his head on her shoulder and saw for the first time how really alone he must feel. He'd come from twenty odd years in the future, knew no one, to do a job he got little to no thanks for doing in the first place. And the closest thing he had to family were three ungrateful witches, who barely tolerated his presence, or the endless demon hunts that he sent them on. And she knew that he only had their best interests at heart, and they had all treated him as if he was evil, when he had clearly shown that he was good and that he was only trying to help them numerous times.

"You're quite sweet you know." She said.

Chris raised his head from her shoulder and looked at her in concern.

"Are you feeling alright?" he asked worriedly.

"Yes. And you are sweet, you're doing so much for us, and have put up with so much crap from us, when anyone else would have told us to get knotted. Why?" she asked curiously.

"I cant tell you that." He said, though in his heart he wanted to, but his mind kept him from doing so.

And for the first time, he realised he was thoroughly depressed about not being able to tell her. She'd looked after him after his mom had died, and had been the one who had defended him from his dad at his mother's funeral...

"_Are you ok sweetie?" Paige asked the fourteen year old boy._

_Chris nodded sadly. Of course he wasn't totally ok. They had just buried his mother, and he had lost the most important woman in his life. Paige and Wyatt had hugged him throughout the service, and now they were back in the manor for the wake, which had just broken up._

"_It'll be ok honey." Phoebe said._

_He knew the two of them were sad too, but they were keeping it together for him and Wyatt. Wyatt was on the other side of the room, talking with his dad. Wyatt was looking angrily at his father, and pointing at Chris, so he knew what they were talking about. _

"_Would it kill you to hug him?" Wyatt demanded angrily._

"_Wyatt..." Leo said warningly._

"_Our mother was murdered by a demon! Chris was here for all of it. He was with her when she bled to death! He yelled and yelled for you to save her, and you never came...all because you cant face the fact that you screwed up our family!" Wyatt yelled._

_Leo looked at Wyatt angrily, and also sent a glare at Chris. Chris was actually surprised he'd even come for the funeral considering how little he seemed to care. Chris had yelled for him for ages to come when the demon had stabbed his beautiful mother, but Leo had been nowhere to be found. Chris had finally given up on having a father four years previously. For ten years, he'd wanted his father to be there, to say that he loved him, and he never had. So, four years ago, on Father's Day, he had sent only three cards. He had sent cards to Leo every day for ten years, and none had ever been answered or even acknowledged. As such, he had stopped sending one to Leo. His mother had been proud of him when he'd decided only to send them to his two uncles and his grandpa. She had told him she wouldn't have given him as many second chances as her little boy had given him. And then she had hugged him and told him everything would be alright. _

"_Wyatt, I am your father..." Leo said angrily._

_Wyatt stuck his chin out defiantly and glared up at his father, nearly the same height as he was._

"_No you're not." Wyatt spat, and went over to stand beside his brother and hugged him to him. _

_Leo looked at Wyatt in shock, and then at Chris, who was staring up at his father with hurt green eyes._

"_Wyatt...if it had been you calling..." Leo began._

"_If you finish that sentence the way I think you're going to finish that sentence Leo, I will punch you in the mouth." Henry growled as he stepped through into the pantry with Coop and Grandpa._

_His two uncles and his grandfather, the only father figures he needed, stood behind the two brothers and glared at Leo, with Victor holding his two grandson's shoulders protectively._

_Leo looked imploringly at Wyatt._

"_I'm your father Wyatt, and I know you miss your mother..." he began._

"_Chris does too! He watched her die!" Wyatt raged, putting an arm defensively in front of his little brother, who had rivers of tears running from his eyes._

"_Wyatt, he let her die!" Leo yelled, and the room went silent as Phoebe and Paige came in._

_Chris gave an audible sob and Wyatt gave his father a hateful glare and turned to hug his little brother, who was crying. Victor sent Leo a look of deepest loathing and kneeled down and brought his youngest grandson to him, hugging him._

"_No you didn't. Never believe that. You had nothing to do with it. If anyone let your mom die, it was Leo." He spat angrily, glaring at Leo._

_Henry and Coop went to their wives sides and glared at Leo, as his two sisters in law gave him a look that could have frozen hell over. _

"_How dare you. You want nothing to do with him for fourteen years, and now, on the day of his mother's funeral, you blame him for her dying? If you want to see whose fault it is that Piper died, look in a mirror Leo." Phoebe spat, furious tears in her eyes and she strolled over to her two nephews and hugged them to her, giving Leo a look that could freeze molten lava._

_Leo opened his mouth, perhaps realising the seriousness of what he had said. He looked around at the hateful glares he was receiving from his sisters-in-law, their husbands, his father-in-law, and his eldest son, while his youngest son, the one he had just accused of letting the most precious person in his life die, sobbed onto his aunt's shoulder. _

"_I...I didn't mean..." Leo stuttered._

"_Yes you did. That's why you said it. You think it's better to blame Chris, because you never had anything to do with him. You were never here, and he was. So, that makes him responsible according to you, right? He is my little brother, and he loved mom more than you ever could have. And you accused him of letting her die. He tried to save her. He even tried to bandage the wound, but he couldn't. He tried to heal her, but he couldn't. He tried the hardest he could to save her. Which was more than you ever did for him, and for her." Wyatt growled hatefully, hugging his little brother protectively._

_Leo recoiled slightly from the hateful glare he was receiving from Wyatt, and then he turned to see Paige, whose fury was beyond description. _

"_Get....out." she spat, her brown eyes narrowed in hatred._

"_Paige..." Leo protested._

"_Get...out." she repeated, her strawberry blonde hair seeming to rise like a set of vipers ready to smite him down. _

_Henry stood behind his wife, perhaps to protect her, or most likely to stop her beating Leo into a pulp. _

"_Paige..."_

_Paige narrowed her eyes, and the next thing they knew, her hand lashed out and smacked Leo hard on the nose, resulting in a large crack. Blood poured from Leo's nose and spilled onto his Elder robes, staining them. Chris looked at his furious aunt and felt a great swelling of love for her in his heart. She was defending him._

"_Get out of this house right now. You're the one who walked out on your family Leo. You're the one who joined the Elders. Go back to them, let them deal with you. They can have you! But don't you dare come down here and blame the son you've ignored all his life for what you did! You are the one who abandoned her! You are the one who let her die! Not Chris. Now, get out of here, and never come back. And if you even think of coming anywhere near my nephews again, Wyatt, or Chris, I will vanquish you myself." She spat, her fury unleashed as she glared at the man who had just accused her lovely little nephew of killing his mother on the day they buried her._

_Leo looked around the room, and saw nothing but hatred from all present. Coop, who was normally quite friendly even to people he didn't like, was sending him a look of pure malice, as was Phoebe. Victor and she were comforting Chris, who was still crying at the accusation that he had let his mommy die. Wyatt narrowed his eyes at Leo, letting the man know that all love he had once possessed for him had evaporated when he had accused his little brother. And Paige, furious and beautiful at the same time, was glaring at him, and flexing her hands as though she wanted to squeeze the life out of Leo._

"_Get...out. And never...ever...come here, or go near my nephews...ever again." She hissed._

_Leo looked around at the ones he had once thought of as family._

"_I'm sorry." He said in a voice that came across as desperate and pathetic._

"_OUT! GET OUT!" Paige roared._

_With one last pained look at Wyatt, Leo orbed out, and then Wyatt burst into tears as his hatred for his father and the loss of his mother hit him. Chris, who was still sobbing, turned away from Phoebe and hugged his brother. Paige and Phoebe then brought the two of them to them and hugged them tightly._

"_If he ever comes back, I will kill him." Paige snarled._

_Phoebe looked at her furious little sister, and her two wailing nephews, and nodded grimly._

"_Agreed." She spat._

He had missed them all, his mother most. But having an aunt even vaguely care for him again was making his heart swell with love for them again, a love he'd had to bury since arriving from the future.

"Thank you Paige." He said as he got to his feet.

"Next time you think we're giving you a hard time for no reason, just tell us ok?" she asked gently.

Chris nodded, his eyes stinging. She was being so caring, and he wanted nothing more than to go back into her arms and hear her tell him it was alright. But he couldn't. He still had a job to do.

"Thank you Paige." He said.

"Out of interest, why do you come here?" she asked, looking around at the quiet graves.

"It's quiet. And someone I know is buried here." He said, then mentally kicked himself.

Maybe a small part of him was hoping she would discover who he really was...

"Oh I'm sorry." She said, looking guilty.

"It's alright. Goodnight Paige. And thank you." He said, smiling at her slightly as he orbed out.

As the room was illuminated she caught a glance of the wall where he'd been at when she'd found him. One name looked vaguely familiar. Before she could investigate any further, the light dimmed and she was on her own in the dark. And despite the fact that she was a super witch, she still didn't like being around cemeteries at night. She was about to orb out when she heard a whisper on the wind.

"_Good girl_." A comforting female voice said.

Paige looked around, spooked. Shivering slightly, she headed home.

XX

The next day, Piper was in the kitchen making the coffee as Phoebe and Paige came downstairs discussing Chris.

"He seemed really down when I found him. And get this...I found him in a cemetery." Paige said sadly.

"Poor kid. I suppose we have been a bit mean to him." Phoebe said.

"Are you going to apologise to him?" Paige asked as they entered the kitchen, ducking to avoid a low flying gloop of apple sauce thrown by Wyatt.

"Wyatt! Dont throw food!" Piper scolded.

"Yeah. We haven't exactly made it easy on him. I'll go and see him later." Phoebe said as Wyatt looked down at his sauce sadly.

"Go and see who?" Piper asked curiously.

"Chris." Phoebe answered simply.

Piper looked at Phoebe, not quite sure of how to react. She knew deep in her heart that Chris was a good guy, and he didn't mean her or her sisters any harm. But she also knew that he was very manipulative and lied a lot. So where did that put them? Did she trust the kid, or not? If she admitted it to herself, she felt some sort of connection to the boy, one she couldn't quite explain.

"Oh." She consented to say and cleaned up.

Paige looked at Phoebe questioningly. Chris had had a hard time and they wanted to make it up to him, and that included getting Piper to apologise to him. Yes, she linked his presence with the collapse of her marriage, but she supposed that deep down that she and Leo had been growing more distant for a while, and hadn't he been the one to choose the Elders over her? Piper pouted as she knew her sisters were watching, but decided to remain silent. Phoebe shook her head at Paige, who looked slightly put out, and Phoebe headed off.

XX

Chris woke up on the lumpy bed in P3, feeling slightly better than he had in a while. He felt that the talk with Paige had unblocked his heart a little. However, now he had a new problem. While she had said she would stop being horrible to him, that gave him another problem to worry about...the fact that he felt his love for his aunt erupting back into his heart. He so wanted to tell her, to tell all of them who he was and allow himself to love them again, to let himself feel good about going into the manor rather than feeling like an interloper and that he wasn't wanted, the compulsion to just tell Paige the next time she visited was very strong. He just wanted to admit that he loved his family, and let them know how much they meant to him and how much he had missed them. Their deaths had devastated him, and even worse with his big brother going evil he had felt alone and abandoned by the ones he loved. He missed them so much that it was a constant void in his heart when he thought of them. That was why he had promised himself when he had come back here that he wouldn't let it get to him. But after months of endless suspicion it was wearing down at him, and he was afraid that they didn't care about him either way, and having his own family, the people he loved more than anything, treating him like he was a bomb about to go off and he had to admit, that despite his reserve, his coldness, it hurt. It hurt a lot.

And that was why Paige apologising to him last night had made him feel better. And at least now he could talk to someone other than a dead lady.

Chris sat down, looking at his notepad. He looked at the picture he had drawn during a wistful moment after he had arrived, of him and his brother along with everyone else he loved, and it made his heart ache. In the picture his mother was in between him and Wyatt, looking at her sons lovingly, and stroking Whisky the cat, who was on her lap. Phoebe and Coop were behind them, and Paige and Henry were beside them. He wished it could really happen...but he knew that it couldn't unless he saved his big brother.

Chris looked at his big brother. Chris had looked up him, and had spent a lot of his childhood wanting to be like him. Chris smiled sadly when he remembered his brother inviting his little brother along with his friends when Chris had been lonely. When Chris had been bullied at school, his brother had defended him. Wyatt had always been there for his little brother...and then he had gone evil and he had lost him.

"I will save you Wy. I want the big brother I love back." Chris said miserably, letting tears fall from his eyes as the missing of his brother caught up to him.

There was a gentle knock on the door and Chris about leapt from his skin. In fact, he orbed slightly in his shock. No one ever came by the club this early.

"Chris? Can I come in?" Phoebe asked gently.

Chris blanched and hid his notepad in his rucksack, which had carried his clothes, notepad, potions and the other things he brought from the future. He shut the bag and threw it behind the chair as Phoebe came in, looking concerned.

"Chris, what's wrong?" she asked in concern.

Chris shook his head, trying to clear the tears.

"I'm ok." He said gruffly, getting up and trying to dodge her.

Phoebe narrowed her eyes disbelievingly, and took his arm gently and slowly pulled him to the seat. He sat down away from her, unsure of what she wanted.

"Is it us you're crying about?" she asked, guilt breaking across her face.

Chris looked at her in surprise. Did she feel sorry too?

"No Phoebe, it's not you, trust me." He said.

"Because if it is, I'm very sorry for the way we treated you ever since you arrived. We shouldn't have, we should have known better, and the fact that you put up with it..." she gibbered.

Chris patted her hand, while wiping his eyes with his other.

"Phoebe, it's ok. It's not you I'm upset about." He soothed.

Phoebe smiled slightly, but then his unknowing aunt narrowed her eyes in concern.

"So why are you crying honey?" she asked, sidling up to him and putting a comforting arm around his shoulder.

Chris wondered whether or not to tell her. His mind raged against the idea, arguing that his secrecy was his best weapon against whatever evil got to his big brother. But his heart so wanted to tell them all, to tell Phoebe, to tell Paige, to tell his mother. He wanted to feel that he could at least love them, even if they didn't care much about who he was. He just wanted to stop lying to his family, and be able to play with his little big brother without his mom regarding him with suspicion and to stop them muttering about him, and at least end the hostile glares. And the idea felt so good...

But then another part of his heart, the part jaded by too many years losing the ones he loved and seeing his brother turn evil, raised another question. What if he told them and they didn't believe him, or rejected him? What if Piper was horrified about who her son had become and refused to have him? What if Phoebe and Paige were disgusted with their nephew? These fears raced through his mind, so, to protect his heart, Chris decided to lie yet again.

"I...I just miss home thats all..." he muttered, hating himself for lying to her and for not having the heart to tell her the truth.

Phoebe looked at him sympathetically and hugged him, and he melted into her arms, reminding himself of how safe he always felt when she hugged him. Even after his mother died, he'd gone to her to feel safe, and she and Paige had tried to be there for him as much as she had, but had never tried to replace her in his heart.

"Oh Chris, I'm sorry. I suppose we never really stopped to think how thankless a task this is. You're twenty years in the past, you know no one, and you're stuck minding three thankless bitches and watching their baby for little to no thanks, and with us hardly tolerating you..." she said, her guilt magnifying.

Chris got up and stared her in the eyes. Phoebe looked deep into his eyes, something she had never done before, and she felt they had a vague familiarity about them.

"Phoebe, don't think that. Yeah, you haven't made it easy, but you're doing it to protect yourselves. And I wont let you berate yourself for looking out for yourselves, ok?" he said fiercely.

Phoebe smiled slightly at him, and Chris felt slightly proud of himself. He didn't like his mother or his aunts second guessing what they were doing, especially when in all rights they had no reason to. They felt they were protecting themselves and Wyatt by not trusting him, and although it hurt, he knew they were doing the right thing. And he had once berated both her and Paige for feeling guilty that they weren't looking after them properly after Wyatt turned. Chris had sat them down and had told them that they had done nothing wrong. He didn't like seeing his aunts or his mom beat themselves up.

"Chris, you really are quite wise sometimes." She said, smiling at him.

Chris felt himself blushing, to his horror.

"Uh...thanks." he said uncertainly, and she wrapped him back in a hug.

"Your mom must be proud of you." She said sweetly.

Chris felt a pang in his heart as he remembered they didn't know who he was, and also a pang of fear as he was terrified his mother would hate him when she found out the truth.

"I...I hope she is." He admitted, as tears choked him slightly as his fears played in his mind.

"Chris?" Phoebe asked worriedly.

"She...died, when I turned fourteen." He said, knowing that if they found out who he was he would get into enormous trouble later for revealing too much.

"Oh I'm sorry sweetie." She said, and meant it.

Seeing that he was crying, she hugged him tighter and he decided to let his guard down a little bit and let her know some innocent things about him, which she wouldn't be able to link to his real identity.

"She was a witch, powerful, just like Piper, a tough mom if anyone threatened us. She was beautiful, tough, and she loved us so much...and then a demon came on my birthday and took her away from me." He said, shuddering at the memory of kneeling in the pool of his mother's blood as her life left her.

"Oh Chris..." Phoebe said, as her empathy powers finally broke through his shield and she could feel the keen pain he still felt.

"My dad was never around, he hated me. So, after she died, my aunts looked after me...they were great, nearly as good as mom was. But then, they died too..." he sighed sadly, more tears falling onto Phoebe's shoulder.

Phoebe looked at her young Whitelighter, and felt how much pain he dealt with every day, and she could feel how much he missed his mom and aunts, but his mom in particular.

"It's ok honey, you have us now..." she said, but wasn't quite sure why.

But when she said it, he turned and looked at her, and his beautiful green eyes sparkled a little with warmth, and she knew she had said the right thing.

"Thank you Phoebe." He said, smiling shyly.

He felt love for her start to reform in his heart. Coming here had meant he had had to harden his heart. But now, with Paige and Phoebe realising how much they had hurt him, without actually knowing why, and trying to make up for it, love and affection for them, which he had locked away since their deaths to prevent himself from breaking down every time he missed them, was now creeping back into his life and his heart. And, while his mind was terrified of this, his heart wasn't. It actually felt right, and again he debated whether or not to tell her the truth.

"You're welcome. And I promise we wont give you a hard time anymore." She promised earnestly.

"Thanks. It...helps a lot." He said, clearing the tears from his throat.

"Come by later ok? I need to go to work." She said caringly, and kissed his cheek as she left.

Chris smiled, feeling even better than he had when he had woken up.

XX

Piper smiled at baby Wyatt as he played with some building blocks. As he played, she thought about Chris. Paige and Phoebe both seemed to have mollified towards him, so maybe she should do the same. And she did have to admit to herself, that despite her slightly blaming him for the collapse of her marriage to Leo, he did seem to be quite a good kid. Which only made her feel guilty when she remembered that she had told him to stop playing with Wyatt when he had been reading her son a story. The slightly hurt look in his eyes had been haunting her all day. And now that she actually came to think about the lad, she thought that there was something familiar about him that she couldn't quite place, and his eyes reminded her of something...

"Piper, can I talk to you?" Paige asked, interrupting her sister form her reverie.

Piper turned to look at her sister, who had a determined look in her eye, and Piper supposed that she was here to talk about Chris.

"Yeah, what's up?" she asked.

Paige looked shiftily about.

"Well it's about Chris, but please, don't overreact." She pleaded gently.

Piper smiled slightly.

"Dont worry, I wont." She soothed.

"Well, I think we should all lay off Chris a bit. And I know you blame him for you and Leo..." Paige began, but Piper held up her hand.

"No. Actually, I'm beginning to think he was just the catalyst. We were starting to fall apart before hand, and maybe the time travelling you did changed us slightly too. Actually, I think Chris might have done us a favour by appearing when he did. But what's your interest in him all of a sudden?" Piper asked curiously.

Paige looked guiltily down at the piece of paper Piper hadn't noticed her holding. Paige gave it to Piper, who looked down at the picture of her, Phoebe and Paige, holding Wyatt all looking happy...and Chris standing dejectedly in the background. Piper felt tears well up in her eyes, but why, she didn't know. It's not as if she had any reason to feel sorry for him, or include him...but she felt sorry for him none the less, and all she wanted to do in that moment was run to him and hug him and tell him everything would be alright.

She sniffed slightly as she looked at the boy's hurt face as he observed the family scene.

"He drew this?" Piper asked weakly.

Paige nodded sadly, and Piper's heart ached for the pain they had caused their young Whitelighter. Yes, he appeared untrustworthy, but hadn't he shown many times since his arrival that he could be trusted? And he certainly cared for them, and for Wyatt, or otherwise he would have told them to back off months ago. But, due to his commitment to them, he hadn't said anything, and had let them go on making him feel like a pariah, and Piper, who had had a hard time at high school, knew what it felt like to be ignored by people who you should be able to relate to or should appreciate who you were. Guilt rushed through Piper, and settled around her heart.

"Poor kid...why didn't he say anything?" Piper demanded.

Paige shrugged.

"He said it was his job, that he knew he wouldn't get treated well and that we wouldn't trust him, but he said he had to do it anyway. But art is a form of expression, and thats pretty expressive. We've made him miserable Piper. And I reckon we should make it up to him." She said suggestively.

Piper nodded adamantly. Now, he wasn't just Chris, the Whitelighter, who had a lot of secrets and wasn't saying much about anything, and who the girls felt they couldn't trust. Now he was Chris, the young Whitelighter, who in hindsight had risked everything to come back here and protect Wyatt, for no thanks at all from his uncaring charges, who acted as if he were just an interloper in their lives, and they had hurt him with that treatment.

"Do you know where he is?" Piper asked, wanting to apologise to him, maybe cook him something to show that she wasn't as cold as she'd been acting.

Paige shook her head, and Piper pouted. She realised that they didn't actually know anything about him, about what he liked or didn't like, or anything about him at all. They'd just been content to ignore him or treat him harshly ever since he'd arrived. Piper wanted to make a fuss of him, and show him, that while she didn't act like it, she actually did appreciate the fact that he had travelled through time simply to help them.

"We've been rotten to him haven't we Paige?" Piper asked feeling horrible about it.

"Yeah, we sort of have. Last night, I found him in a mausoleum in tears. The poor kid's got enough going on without us harassing him all the time." Paige said.

Piper nodded sadly. She wanted to see Chris and hug him, and she felt a small bond of kinship form between them. She knew what it was like to be treated badly when all you wanted to do is fit in. She hated the irony of it. She had spent all of high school trying to fit in and had gotten nowhere, despite her doing pretty well. And Chris had spent months here, putting up with them because he felt he had to, and not being able to articulate what he wanted or needed, just like she had once done. Shame filled her.

"As soon as I see him, I'm going to apologise to him. Maybe I should call him?" Piper asked uncertainly.

Paige shook her head slightly.

"Nah, Phoebe went to apologise to him earlier, he might still be there. He'll come by soon enough. If you want though, I can check and see if he's still at P3 and get him to come and see you?" she asked.

Piper nodded as she looked out at the setting sun. She remembered watching it from her bedroom during high school, when she had felt all abandoned and alone. Did Chris feel like that? From what Paige had said, she figured he must have been struggling along for a while for him to be in such a state, feeling abandoned by the only people he knew and alone in the world with no one to talk to, except perhaps the dead. And they had done that. Shame and guilt in equal measure were rushing through her heart.

"Find him please Paige..." she said, tears choking her voice.

Wyatt looked up at his mother as his aunt orbed away, and saw she was crying. He reached towards her and she picked him up, rocking him gently.

"Bwo..." he said, a word he had heard from Chris.

But Piper, who was looking out at the golden sunset, didn't hear him, as she was too preoccupied worrying about Chris.

XX

Chris looked at one of the story books he had brought from the future. He had always enjoyed reading, and always fondly remembered his mother reading the Lord of the Rings to him, his aunt Phoebe reading the Twilight series to him (which he actually quite liked, though he had never told Wyatt this) and his aunt Paige and he would read Star Wars books together after he discovered that she was a closet Star Wars nerd, and she had gotten him into it too. At the moment he was reading one of her favourites, Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn. He actually felt quite happy for once. Both Paige and Phoebe had apologised to him, and he felt happier than he had done in a long time.

However, his happiness, and even his enjoyment of his book, couldn't distract him from the debate that was raging inside his head. He was debating whether or not to tell his aunts his true identity. Was that being selfish? His heart was opening up to them again, after years of being closed due to their deaths. But them comforting him over the last twenty four hours had made him realise that he had missed them so much, and his heart was screaming as loud as it could that now they were receptive to the idea of being nicer to him, he should just come out and tell them who he was. If they hated him for it, so be it. Yes, it would hurt more than one of Wyatt's energy balls or other tortures ever could, his own family being ashamed of him and not wanting to have him around them, but at least they would know, and then, he might be able to concentrate on his mission more.

That was the entire reason he promised himself when he had come here, that he wouldn't allow himself to grow to love any of them, and he would just view them as objects. But, seeing the ones he loved the most, the ones who were taken away from him, every day, made his heart tremble at seeing them, and he wanted just to blurt everything out. And so he had come to rely on his cold detachment to see him through, but their treatment of him had eroded that, and so the effect was that he now wanted nothing more than to tell them who he really was, and possibly give himself a chance to be loved again by the ones he missed so much.

But sadly, and though this fact ripped his heart in two every day, he had a job to do here, and he couldn't allow himself to be distracted by thoughts of his family, even if he did tell them and they accepted him. And that was the rub. Even if he did tell them, which he couldn't do because if he did he wouldn't be able to focus on his job, what was to say they would want to know the truth? Would they believe him? And worse, if they did, would they want him? These clouded emotions swirled around him as he tried to decide what to do, and the pain of loving people so much that he both wanted to tell them and didn't want to tell them at the same time was ripping him apart. No wonder he was so frayed these days, he was so split between what he should do. And what was more, the rejection that he had endured up until now had made it worse, but now that they were showing that they cared about him, he wanted just to break down into tears and tell them...either that or break down into tears and slam his head against a wall he was so confused about what to do.

He knew one thing though. He was becoming an emotional wreck, and he felt that the slightest thing would set him off. And now that Phoebe and Paige had opened up to him, he was afraid he would get his nightmares of them dying back. The thought of seeing his aunt Phoebe killed by one of his brother's energy balls or his aunt Paige killed by a Darklighter arrow fired by his brother, or even his mother killed by that horrific demon nightly did not appeal to him in the slightest.

So what was he to do? Tell them, and hope they'll accept him? Tell them and find out they loathe him and be rejected by the only family he had ever known? Not tell and keep on with his mission? Not tell them and most likely have a break down?

Chris sighed, misery setting in once more. He was torn deciding what to do. Yes, he felt slightly better than he had in a while, but with them comforting him, he now felt worse about lying to them and not being able to decide what to do about his situation.

"Chris?" Paige asked as she came in the door.

Chris jumped up, startled. His book, by remarkable chance, fell into his bag, hiding the fact that he was a Star Wars fan too. And he had a sneaky suspicion that if he got into a debate with Paige about the best Star Wars book, he would let out too much future knowledge, about books that hadn't been done yet for example, or about himself. And if she saw other books in his bag, such as her own copy of the Jedi Academy Trilogy, it might just be a bit of a giveaway.

"Paige, you startled me." He complained, sitting up on the sofa so she could sit down.

"You ok?" she asked, her warm brown eyes narrowed in concern.

Chris looked into her caring face, one of the ones who had always been there for him, and his heart was yelling for him to tell her. But, as usual, his mind won out, and forced it down, thinking that secrecy was the best defence for his mission...even if it made him miserable.

"I'm ok." He said, without any real conviction.

Paige looked at him in concern. He looked...drawn out, like he was being spread too thin. He also looked worried and agonised, and she wondered how one person, especially one so young, could fit in so many emotions and not burst.

"Chris, is it us? I mean..." she said unhappily.

Chris shook his head relentlessly.

"No, it isn't you. It's me. I'm just a worrier, like my mom." He said, then mentally kicked himself.

Paige looked at him in concern. He looked pale and worried, and she was afraid that he wasn't getting enough sleep all of a sudden. It was funny, how you can be hostile, then how quickly your hostility can turn into affection and even concern.

"Well, what are you worried about?" she asked, sitting beside him and holding his hand.

Chris forced his heart down once more. He felt secretly that if he kept doing that, one day it would just refuse to come back up and he would become just as cold and hard as his brother was.

"Just that...the future might be an even worse state than it was when I left it if I don't succeed." He said, hoping she would believe the lie.

Paige seemed content with this fib, and wrapped her arm around him and gently laid him down on the couch, where she trapped him with her arms comfortingly. It had been so long since he had felt her embrace like this, protective, that he simply wanted to go to sleep.

"How bad is it?" she asked softly.

Chris wondered whether to tell her anything. So far, he had remained tight lipped about the future. And he knew that if they ever found out who he really was, they would not like the fact that it was baby Wyatt, the one they all made so much fuss over, who had made it so bad. But now that he had said it, he supposed it wouldn't hurt to tell her. But, why didn't he just follow his heart and tell the ones he loved who he really was? But no, he couldn't. So, instead, he sadly consented himself with telling her why the future was so bad, giving her enough of the details, just no names.

"Well, my mom dying eight years ago was the start. Things started to get worse after that. My big brother...he turned evil. Something got to him, I don't know what. He went evil and he started leading the demons. They took over, killing everyone who was important to good, finally taking out the Elders. You three...are...dead. The world's dark, magic has been exposed, and it's my brother who's behind the entire thing. That's why he was so determined to stop me, I think he knows that I will never join him so I might try and undo everything he's done. It was him who killed my aunts." He admitted, and felt himself curling up into her warm, caring embrace, and though his mind was raging at him for going soft and letting her influence him into revealing so much, he didn't much care.

He was in one of his five favourite people's arms, protected from whatever was bothering him. Or at least, thats what he had used to think. Now, he was more jaded. But that didn't mean a hug from his mother, one of his two aunts, his grandpa or his big brother couldn't dispel some troubles. And while his troubles were still there, they weren't as potent as they had seemed before. And he was snuggled up against her warmth, and he could feel she was shocked by everything he had told her.

Paige looked at Chris in horror. No wonder the kid was in such a state. His big brother had betrayed him, turned evil, killed his aunts and had taken over the world. But she felt there was still something he wasn't saying. Regardless, never before had she felt so much sympathy for him. She looked at the young vulnerable boy, who was just trying to get people he was trying to help to like him, so he could at least make sure one family wasn't wrecked by what happened in the future. Unconsciously, she started stroking his hair comfortingly, and he wriggled tighter into her grip, making her smile slightly.

"So, why did you come back honey? Why help us?"

Chris frowned slightly, but as he was facing away from her she didn't see. Now what to tell her? His heart was hammering in his chest, and he was worried she would feel it at any second. He could hear a rhythm thumping against his ribcage- _te-ll-her_. But he couldn't. That would only make matters worse, and distract him from his true goal as he would be distracted by the fact that his family now knew who he was. And if they loved him, it would make it even harder to concentrate, as he knew that because they were the strongest forces of good in the universe, and also because they were wonderful, caring people, they would try to make it up to him. So, despite it most likely being his heart's deepest desire, to tell at least one family member who wasn't dead or wasn't a toddler who he really was, he ignored his heart and decided on a story much like the original.

"Whatever evil gets to my big brother hurts Wyatt. Hurts him bad. So, I'm trying to stop that. And hopefully that will save my family too." He said sadly.

He sounded so sad in that moment that Paige's heart almost broke. He'd had one hell of a life. His parent figures being killed, most of them having been done so by his own brother. No wonder he was so tight lipped about the future. She appreciated how much it must have hurt him to talk to her about it just now, and how much he missed his family. He was curling up into her and she rubbed his side comfortingly, then frowned.

"Chris, you're thin as a rake! Have you been eating properly?" she demanded.

Chris looked at the floor, trying to remember he'd eaten anything other than a snack.

"Um, probably not."

"And you look so pale, so tired and drawn out...have you been sleeping properly? Have you relaxed any since you got here from the future?" she asked urgently, fearing for his wellbeing.

Chris considered it, and then looked up at her guiltily.

"Probably not." He said, looking slightly sheepish.

Paige looked down at him disapprovingly, and he felt like he was a little boy again, coming under the gaze of one of his aunts when he and Wyatt had gotten up to some sort of mischief...such as when they had accidentally turned their uncle Henry into a horse. In their defence, they had been trying to help him, but had gotten the word wrong. He said he felt a little hoarse, and their spell thought he had said horse and it had backfired and had turned him into a large, black horse, which Paige had shrieked upon seeing. Henry however had told her they were originally trying to help him, so they had gotten off relatively lightly. But that was another story.

"Chris...you need to take of yourself! You're obviously not eating enough, you're like a stick! You're clearly not sleeping properly either! I know you want to help us, but..."

Chris looked at her, feeling defensive.

"Well, I've been busy...trying to help you fix things, help Wyatt..." he muttered, feeling resentful that he was getting moaned at for looking out for his brother.

Paige looked down at him, the resentment in his eyes making her think. Maybe he was just being male, but there seemed a bit too much resentment in there for him just to be annoyed that he was getting moaned at. But then, he was doing it to help them, so she supposed she ought to come across as concerned rather than criticising.

"Ok, I'm sorry, I know how much you've been helping us...even when we haven't particularly wanted it much." She said, looking abashed.

Chris sighed and sat up, hugging his legs to him as she sat beside him.

"It's ok Paige. I'm sorry. It's just I'm in such a state just now..." he said, tailing off and looking away, regretting the fact that he had made her feel guilty again.

"It's ok sweetie. Lie down." She ordered.

Chris looked at her in confusion.

"You cant help fix the future if you're broken. So, I am going to make sure you get a good night's sleep." She said bossily.

Chris looked at his aunt, and was so touched he wanted to crack again, but he forced down the emotion.

"Paige..." he began, but she just pointed down and he did so, figuring it was easier to acquiesce than it was to fight.

Paige looked at him as he lay down, and she felt affection for him fill her. There was something about him now. Ever since she had found out how much they had hurt him, a small part of her had just wanted to protect him and comfort him. And she could tell he was in need of comforting.

"How do you plan to watch me from the manor?" Chris asked in confusion, bringing her back to reality.

"I'm not going to the manor. I am going to stay here and make sure you sleep properly." She told him sternly.

As such, she moved to the end of the couch and placed his head on her lap. He looked up at her guiltily.

"Paige, you don't have to do this." He said, not wanting his aunt to lose sleep over him.

She shot him a look that showed she was not going to be argued with, and he consented to her wishes and laid down, making himself comfy on her lap. She looked at the boy as he did so, and she pulled the blanket down and tucked him in to keep him warm.

"Thank you." He said, feeling happy slightly as he knew his aunt would make good on her promise and make sure he slept properly, which now he came to think of, he hadn't done in a few nights and could really use.

She let him get comfy and cosy, absently stroking his hair as he did so. He looked up at her and orbed the other blanket which he used on cold nights to her so she wouldn't get cold.

"Thank you. You are quite sweet." She said, smiling at him.

Chris snorted.

"Says you who's giving up her night to make sure her neurotic interfering Whitelighter from the future sleeps properly." He said in amusement.

She laughed slightly and he could begin to feel himself get drowsy. However, what if his dreams gave him away? Who knew what sort of things he would cry out as his worst nightmares caught up to him? Losing his family, being tortured by Wyatt, other things...

He was interrupted from his wonderings by Paige reaching into his bag and pulling out his book.

"You like this?" she asked happily.

"Yeah." He admitted, wondering if his number was up.

"I like these books, still have them somewhere, only don't tell the others or I'll never hear the end of it." She said.

Chris relaxed a little. She seemed more interested in the book rather than why he had it, which suited him.

"One of my aunts used to read them to me when I was growing up, and I just kept going." He admitted, then heard his mind yelling abuse at him for nearly letting it go again.

"She sounds very cool." Paige said, smiling at him as she opened to where he was.

Chris looked at her warmly, and nodded.

"Yeah, she is." He said, ignoring his mind yelling abuse at the back of his head.

Paige then began to read aloud. Chris felt so young again, but he didn't care. It was a vague semblance of the life he used to have, before everything had gone to hell, and he wasn't complaining. So, with his aunt reading one of his books to him just like she used to, he slowly drifted off to a peaceful sleep.

A while later, Paige finished the chapter and looked down at Chris, and saw that he was sound asleep. She didn't know why she had read aloud. It just seemed right. And now she knew they had something in common. Not that she would ever tell her sisters this. Her stash was hidden in her cupboard and pursued only when she was sure they wouldn't be faffing about in her room for no apparent reason. But if she and Chris could at least talk about something they had in common, she might be able to get him to open up about other stuff, including whatever it was he was still hiding from her, which she was sure he was. But despite all of them wanting answers, she knew pushing him was the wrong thing to do. He would tell them in his own time. And considering the emotional state he seemed to be in, she didn't think she would have to wait soon.

Looking at him, she felt that he looked vaguely familiar to her. Then, a shadow of a thought began to creep into her mind. She looked at him suspiciously, then dismissed it. But as she looked at the sleeping young man, who was nothing more than a boy, on her lap and the thought returned. It couldn't be...could it?

XX

Piper came into the kitchen to find Phoebe typing away at her laptop.

"Have you seen Paige this morning?" Phoebe asked as her nephew was sat down opposite her.

"No. She never came home after she went to see Chris last night. Why, do you think something's happened to her?" Piper asked worriedly.

Phoebe shook her head just as Paige orbed in before them, looking tired.

"See, I told you she was alright." Phoebe said with a grin as Paige went straight for the coffee.

Paige sat down, the thought still running through her mind. But she was more concerned with Chris' nightmares, that had made him cry or scream all through the night, despite her taking his hand and squeezing it, letting him know he wasn't alone. His cries had been full of pain, and she had felt tears soak her leg as he had moved his head about, as though pained by what he was seeing. Sometimes, his mutterings had been so full of fear. When he had muttered '_mom_' her heart had nearly broken hearing how scared he was sounding, afraid that he would lose her yet again as he must have done so many times before. The death of his mother clearly still traumatised him, and she could hear in his voice how much he missed her. But, she felt something else was behind the fact that he was dreaming of her again. Hence her suspicions, but she wouldn't say anything else to her sisters yet.

"Where were you last night?" Piper asked curiously as she made Wyatt's breakfast.

"I went to talk to Chris last night. Have you seen how thin and pale he is? He hardly eats and hardly sleeps. I just felt so sorry for him that I stayed just to make sure he got a decent night's sleep for a change." She said sadly.

Piper smiled slightly.

"Looks like someone is feeling maternal at the moment, and for a nice change it isn't me. About time. How thin is he do you think?" she asked, her own mothering instincts kicking in, most likely to prove they were just as good as Paige's.

"Piper, its as if he hasn't eaten properly in months. I think he's been living on whatever he can scrounge." She said, and Phoebe stopped typing her column to look up at them, concerned.

"He lives in the club, and I'm a trained chef! Why didn't he just take some food from the bar or ask me?" Piper asked as she put Wyatt's breakfast in front of him.

Phoebe looked at her pityingly.

"Well, as we were barely tolerating him in the house, I doubt you'd be receptive to the idea of cooking for him, and he probably didn't want to steal from you because he felt it would just upset you more." She reasoned.

Piper frowned. Had she put Chris' good health as risk by refusing to be nice to him? Had she forced him to scrounge an existence while he was trying to help save her son?

"I think there's something he isn't telling us." Paige concluded.

"What makes you say that?" Phoebe asked interestedly.

"Well Paige, if you're right, you have to give him time. We only decided to start being nice to him a couple of days ago. He isn't going to suddenly blurt out all his secrets just because we're trying to make it up to him." Piper reason as she finally realised she hadn't given Wyatt a spoon for his breakfast, hence explaining why he wasn't eating.

Paige shook her head adamantly.

"Its not that Piper. He actually did open up last night, about the future, and from the way he described it, it is really bad. What I'm thinking is that there is something he isn't telling us, either about himself or about the future." She reasoned.

And she also had her nagging suspicion, but she couldn't do much until she had more facts, which she would have to wait for. But there was also the feeling she had that he actually wanted to tell them whatever he was keeping from them, but for some reason he couldn't tell them, no matter how much he wanted to.

"Well you cant force him Paige. Just give him some time. If he wants to tell us, then he will. And if you see him before I do, tell him to come here for dinner." Piper ordered as she took Wyatt away for his bath.

Paige pouted as Piper left the room, and Phoebe grinned at Paige.

"You want to look after him don't you? You want to hug him and tell him everything is alright?" Phoebe teased.

Paige scowled darkly at her sister. Yes she did, but there was a small part of her that was telling her that it wasn't her place to do that, like that was a job which belonged to someone else and only they could actually do it. It was weird.

"Sort of, I do want to look after him, but don't you?" Paige asked frustratedly.

Phoebe nodded eagerly.

"Yes. I cant explain it any more than you can though Paige. I just want to protect him for some reason. Maybe we're overcompensating in the being nice to him department." She mused, though in her heart she felt that something else was making her feel protective to their damaged Whitelighter from the future.

Paige grimaced. She didn't want Chris to hear any of what they were saying, she had a feeling that it would just upset him. After all, he said that his family were a lot like them, and she knew that some people who had lost family sought a replacement for the lost loved ones. Perhaps he had unconsciously done that with the sisters. And considering the fact that he had been relatively open for the last two days, she didn't want to jeopardise that and make him slam shut again. However she couldn't shake the feeling that she had that they would really discover who he was and a lot more besides if they could just overcome that last obstacle. And she didn't think that was her being nosey, she felt that if they found out it would actually be in Chris' best interests.

"He said last night that he was worried about something. Now that I come to think of it that could have been a lie. I think he's worried that whatever he's keeping from us will upset us, or will put us in danger, or maybe hurt us, so he doesn't want to tell us...either that or he thinks our reaction will hurt him, so he's saying nothing." She said sadly.

Phoebe suddenly felt a bit worse about how they had treated him. He wasn't telling them things in case he hurt or upset them, and they'd been the one who'd upset him. They should be the ones who should be keeping quiet. And now that she came to think of it, when Phoebe looked into his eyes, all she saw was pain and longing. She had originally thought he was longing to be accepted, but now she wasn't as sure. Was he perhaps longing for something else?

"Maybe he's gay." Phoebe then thought, stretching out a bit.

Paige looked up from her coffee at her sister, thinking she had gone mad.

"What?" she demanded, a grin forming.

"Well that would make sense. He's afraid how we'll react if we find out he's gay!" Phoebe explained, and she had to admit, it might be possible...until Paige sunk her thought boat.

"You forgetting he was engaged?" she asked, smiling.

Phoebe opened and closed her mouth, then thought up a retort.

"He might have been in denial." She said.

Paige snorted.

"I think sister mine you are in denial of reality. Now, can we take this back to a normal civilised level and figure out how to help him?" she asked pointedly.

"Oh alright." Phoebe consented.

She sat down, thinking to the times she had been able to only get a glimpse of whatever emotions he was feeling. But even when she had gleaned something off of him, she felt that he was keeping a lot from her, which was very impressive considering how good her empathy powers were.

"I sometimes wish I could just read him." Phoebe lamented, her frustration with being unable to comprehend what he was feeling getting the better of her.

Paige then looked at her sister, an eager expression on her face.

"Wait, we can assume that he took the same potion Piper and I did to stop us finding things out about him cant we?" she asked, her face blazing.

Phoebe nodded.

"He was probably afraid that if I was getting emotions and thoughts, I might feel something he didn't want me to feel. Mind you, if I had, we might not have been so mean to him..." she said regretfully.

Paige waved it away, knowing that she was onto something.

"Phoebe, that's not the point. As far as we know, the potion only blocks him from _your _empathy powers, correct?" she asked excitedly, her head spinning with the idea that she had had.

Phoebe nodded cautiously.

"Brilliant! We can use the power switching spell in the book, then I'll be able to read him!" Paige declared triumphantly.

Phoebe, who had been rather unhinged by her train of thought, recovered enough to look at her sister as though she were mad.

"Paige, no! For one thing, it's profoundly immoral! He took that potion for a reason, and us snooping rather undermines that reason! For another thing, it might not work! And even if it does, you aren't an empath! Prue took in the power of empathy once, and it nearly destroyed her. We cant just do that. And we're trying to get Chris to open up to us and trust us, and violating his emotions that way will be a step backward." Phoebe scolded.

Paige looked at Phoebe with a look that plainly said 'hypocrite', and Phoebe turned away, her cheeks reddening.

"Well, isn't it possible that he unconsciously wants us to find out what he's hiding? I mean, he's given us clues and told us a bit more than he should of, considering how closely he guards his secrets, so maybe he wants us to find out what he's hiding." Paige reasoned.

Phoebe acknowledged that she had heard of this sort of thing before. Perhaps Chris was like Cole, someone evil who was developing a conscience. But she didn't think so. Whatever he was hiding, it had more to do with protecting them and himself than hurting them, of that she was sure. He was one of the good guys, and he cared an awful lot about them, so maybe whatever he was hiding from them was to protect them from some unknown hurt or other.

"Well...possibly, but I don't think..."

Paige looked at her sister pleadingly. And deep down, Phoebe wanted to find out what Chris was hiding, and if it was bad, she genuinely wanted to help him through it. From what they'd heard over the last few days he'd had a very traumatic life, and whatever was in the future terrified him and hurt him no end. So, perhaps Paige's idea wouldn't be so bad.

"Oh alright. But if Piper finds out we are dead." Phoebe said grumpily, and Paige beamed and led her sister upstairs.

As they headed for the book, a whisper went through the house:

"_That's it_." It said approvingly.

Phoebe and Paige stopped on the stairs.

"Did you hear that?" Phoebe asked, looking around. The voice was familiar but she couldn't quite place it...

"Yeah, that's the second time I heard it. The first time was after I went to see Chris in the first place to ask him about his drawing. Maybe he has a guardian angel." She reasoned.

Phoebe nodded, conceding that might be it. They headed upstairs, and Paige eagerly flipped through the book, hoping that this would help get their neurotic Whitelighter to open up to them so they could finally start to understand him, and then perhaps help him fix things. And the fact that it would help them make up for their earlier coldness was also a good point in the plan's favour.

"Now, you'll get a load of emotions, and when Piper finds out what we've done, most likely a lot of anger, so be careful." Phoebe warned anxiously, not wanting Paige to go through what Prue had gone through.

Paige nodded, looking determined.

"We'll swap powers, call Chris, get what we need, then swap them back, that's all." She promised, and she pointed to the spell.

"_What's mine is yours_

_Whats yours is mine_

_Let our powers cross the line_

_I offer up my gift to share_

_Switch our powers through the air_."

The spell took effect, and Phoebe looked at Paige.

"Are you getting anything?" she asked anxiously.

Paige looked at her sister in concern.

"Not a thing. You?"

"No. Which means the spell definitely worked, but we didn't just swap our own powers. Right, so who's powers do we have?" Phoebe asked, figuring she would worry about Piper later.

Paige screwed up her face and orbed, but she didn't go very far. She looked at Phoebe in confusion.

"Well that was weird." She said, looking totally mystified about what had happened with their spell.

A terrible thought had just entered Phoebe's mind, one that would spell certain doom for her and her sister if it ever came to light...which, if she was realistic, would happen very soon.

She headed to the trunk of leftover demon goods and took out a disc launcher that had been left behind from one of their vanquishes. She aimed at Paige, hoping beyond hope that her theory was wrong and that she would hurt her sister.

"React instinctively." Phoebe said, looking worried, and fired a disc at Paige.

Paige raised her hands and a blue shield appeared, which the disc slammed against and broke into pieces. Paige looked at Phoebe with wide worried eyes as she realised what this must mean.

"Oh, have I got Wyatt's powers?" she demanded worriedly, knowing that no power on earth would be able to save her from Piper's inevitable and unspeakable wrath when she found out that her son no longer had his powers.

"I think so honey. Look, don't panic, all we have to do is reverse the spell and everything will be alright again!" Phoebe said brightly.

"Either that or Piper already knows and is plotting a way to kill us that will make the Source's tortures look like a little kitty cat washing!" Paige cried hysterically, fearing what her sister would do.

Phoebe grimaced, and pondered what to do.

Downstairs, Piper was rolling a ball back and forth to Wyatt. However, she mistimed her roll and it went past Wyatt. Wyatt stretched out his little hands and the ball froze mid roll. Piper looked at it in surprise. Since when was Wyatt able to freeze time?

She was then extraordinarily happy all of a sudden, and she could see Wyatt laughing as he unfroze the ball and froze it again. But she knew she shouldn't feel happy. She smelled something fishy, and she wasnt talking about the contents of Wyatt's nappy. She could feel guilt and worry, severe worry, from above her, and she knew what had happened. So, taking a deep breath, she pushed down the happiness she was picking up from Wyatt and let her anger come out full force.

"Phoebe! Paige!" she roared.

There were then some very slow footsteps, as though her two sisters were marching towards their doom, which, on reflection, if she had her proper powers, they probably would be. They edged their heads around the corner, as though the wall could protect them from her soon to be released wrath.

"Hello sis, how are you doing!?" Phoebe asked brightly.

"I must say sis, you're looking absolutely spiffing this morning! Are you feeling alright!?" Paige asked, beaming brightly.

But Piper just narrowed her eyes, feeling their terror, knowing that they were in severe trouble. Aside from that, all she was allowing herself to feel was her own anger, while quietly savouring their terror.

"Hello sisters." She said, smiling evilly, making her sisters shudder.

"What's wrong Piper?" Paige asked, looking panicky.

"Well, I don't seem to have my powers, and Wyatt does. But do you know what powers I do seem to have? Phoebe's! What crackpot, dumb assed spell did you two little wiccan wackos cast!?" she demanded furiously.

Phoebe stepped forward slightly, then levelled her hand at Paige.

"It was all her, she forced me into it, I told her not to!" she said, looking at Piper as though she was going to beg for mercy.

Paige looked at Phoebe angrily and smacked her on the arm, looking very grumpy about her sister's betrayal. She then turned and met Piper's furious stare and quivered.

"We cast the power switching spell." She admitted lamely, figuring they may as well get the yelling over and done with.

Piper growled, and Paige stepped back, looking terrified.

"What the hell did you do that for you maniacs?" she demanded, her anger still letting her remain fully in control.

"Well Paige had the idea that just because Chris was blocked to my empathy powers, that didn't mean that he was blocked to all of them. So, we decided to switch powers to see if we could help him, and let him know we want to be there for him and that he doesn't have to be afraid to tell us whatever he is hiding." Phoebe explained.

"You reckon he's hiding something from us? That's a change." Piper said sarcastically, glowering at them.

"Yes, but we think he's doing it to protect us, so we don't get upset, or that he's afraid how we'll react. We just wanted to help him!" Paige whined, hoping that how pathetic she sounded would defuse Piper.

Piper sighed.

"I just wish you'd told me before attempting this mad spell, its dangerous. I want to help Chris just as much as you two do." She said resentfully, a little hurt that she had been left out by her sisters when she was feeling very maternal towards their sweet Whitelighter...not that she would ever admit it to them.

Because now she came to think of it, Chris really was quite sweet. He'd put up with their hostility for months simply to protect her son, even though it was hurting him a lot to go through that. And Phoebe had told them how much the three of them meant to him, and it had touched her. And also the fact that he had even found time to play with Wyatt, despite the fact that he said he didn't like babies, was quite sweet.

She just wanted to protect him and cuddle him, and more importantly, apologise to him. And the fact that he still respected her enough to say that she was like his mother had moved her.

"Really?" Paige asked, looking guilty.

"Yes." Piper said, glaring at her sister as she picked up her son.

The other two looked down at their shoes guiltily, feeling sorry for their sister.

"So, no more secrets in the Chris matter, we're all in this together. Right, so what was the next step in this madcap plan?" Piper asked.

"Well, we wanted to ask Chris here to see if he was able to be read. And then we would go on from there." Paige explained.

Piper nodded, then thought about the boy. He was so closed off about himself and the future, she felt that if they called him here specifically to read him that it would be an intrusion. She figured that he had to be keeping quiet for a reason. So, would it be wrong for them to find out what that reason was, as he clearly didn't want them knowing it? But Paige said that she figured that he wanted to tell them, he just couldn't figure out how. So would it be bad to do that to him?

Chris orbed in just at that moment, feeling better than he had done in ages. He'd slept relatively better than he usually did, his aunts were on his side despite the fact that they didn't know who he truly was, and he felt that he actually could tell them. He had finally defeated the controlling part of his mind. Something his grandpa had once said to him came to mind...

"_Chris, what's wrong?" Grandpa asked his fifteen year old grandson, who was sitting looking at a picture of his mother sadly._

"_Hey grandpa." He said, sniffing._

_It was quiet moments, particularly on a Sunday, when he missed his mother most. It was a Sunday when the two of them would spend the day cooking together, and after all that was done he would often have a couple rounds with her on the Wii, and usually beat her, unless she fluked it or he let her win. But now, he didn't have that. His aunts, while they loved him to bits, just weren't his beautiful, loving mother, the only parent he had ever had...in truth, the only one he had ever needed._

"_It's ok buddy, I know you miss her." He said, wrapping his arm around Chris' shoulders._

_Chris let tears flow, as the grief he still felt, even a year later, overcame him. Grandpa patted his head gently._

"_It's ok son." He soothed._

"_I just miss her grandpa...and the only memory I can recall properly is her bleeding to death in the kitchen, or her face when we went to see her at the funeral home..." he wept._

_Grandpa rocked him slightly, then knelt down in front of his upset grandson and looked him straight in the eye._

"_I know. Those are the memories that stick, even when you'd rather they don't. But you had fourteen years with your mother Chris. Fair enough, you wont remember some things. Nowadays, I'm lucky I can remember what I did last week." He said, and Chris smiled a little, as his grandpa was anything but senile...just a bit forgetful._

"_The point is Chris, you have wonderful memories of your mom. And she loved you more than anyone else in the world. I know that. She loved you more than she ever loved your dad, more than she lover your aunts, and, but don't tell him I said this, even more than she loved your big brother, because you were just __**her**__ little boy, and hers alone. I know its hard to get rid of the bad memories, especially considering it was you who found her. But you have to. Treasure the time you did spend with her, and recall the good memories fondly. And let's face it, you don't have many of her yelling at you." Grandpa chortled._

_Chris smiled through his tears._

"_I will grandpa." He said, and hugged his grandfather._

So, he was going to make the most of the time he had here, and still save his brother into the bargain. Yeah, he was taking a risk, and the chances of him getting hurt were very high...but he had to try, before he fell apart. He couldn't go on without them knowing anymore, it was tearing him to pieces. So, taking a deep breath, he prepared to go in and tell them, just as his mind came out of the dormancy he had sent it to.

Would telling them not endanger his mission? Yes, he actually wanted to tell them, but would he still be able to focus on his job? Would they not pester him for details about their own futures, and would the pain of that not distract him from what he had to do? And, his usual fear, if they were appalled by who he had become, would their rejection not break his spirit and perhaps stop him doing what he came here to do?

Chris leaned against the wall sadly, and realised, that no matter how much it was hurting him, he had to keep on with his cover. And that fact ripped his heart apart even further. He so wanted to tell them...but couldn't. And that fact hurt more than he could have imagined. So, as usual, for the sake of his mission, he would deny himself even the smallest chance of happiness...and he could only hope that he wouldn't break down when it became too much for him.

Piper sighed, then turned to her sisters.

"I'm really glad I'm not Chris' mom." She said sadly.

Outside, Chris was knocked from his own thoughts as he heard his own mother, the one he had loved more than his big brother, say she was glad she wasn't his mother. His mother, unwitting though she was, didn't want anything to do with him. Grief, and the pain of rejection, lanced through his heart like a wildfire as he heard the one he loved most, even now, despite all she had said to him and done to hurt or upset him. Trying, and failing to hold back the tears that had welled up inside his eyes as the hurt of what she had said hit him, he orbed away.

Phoebe and Paige were looking at her questioningly, as Piper felt a wave of deep, deep hurt, grief and rejection wash over her. It was so strong she nearly dropped Wyatt. She then burst into tears and slid to the floor, tears pouring from her cheeks.

"Piper, what's wrong?" Phoebe demanded urgently, rushing to her sister.

Piper gasped steadily, trying to regain control of her own emotions. She took several deep breaths, then looked at her sisters with devastated, red rimmed eyes.

"I think Chris heard what I just said." She sobbed.

Paige's eyes narrowed, as though she was thinking of something. Phoebe looked worried, but helped Piper up.

"Oh sweetheart, I told you how much we meant to him! True, he shouldn't be eavesdropping, but hearing you say that will have most likely really hurt him." She said sadly.

Piper was shaking as she recovered from the emotional onslaught of Chris' hurt.

"What made you say it?" Paige asked curiously.

"He didn't hear me finish..." Piper tailed off, wanting nothing more than to rush to wherever Chris was, and talk to him, tell him she hadn't meant it the way it had come out, that she had more to say and apologise for hurting him so badly.

"Well finish now. What were you going to say?" Paige asked, looking urgent.

"I've never felt anyone be so sad before, it's like I broke his heart." Piper gasped, clutching her heart.

"Piper..." Phoebe whispered leadingly, wanting to hear what her sister had really wanted to say before she had been cut off by Chris' emotional backlash.

"I was going to say that I'm glad I'm not his mother, because if I was, I would feel like I'd failed him because he's such a state, and I would never let him go, because I would want to make sure he was safe and happy rather than what he's become...but it's weird. He felt so devastated, but I'm not even his real mother..." she said, her voice choked with tears.

"Yeah, but I think he's unconsciously sort of adopted you as a surrogate mother. Hearing you say that probably hurt...a lot." Phoebe said, wincing as she did so, glad she wasn't in possession of her empathic powers at that time.

"But why would he think that? After the way I treated him..." Piper said as she slowly started to return to normal.

"Because you're a mom to everyone? And he said that you were a lot like his real mom, so maybe by association he sort of felt connected to you. Poor kid must really miss her." Phoebe said, knowing what it was like to grow up without a mom around.

"We need to go to him, sort this out..." Paige said, her mind reeling with the possibilities that were in her mind, many of which were beginning to seem true.

"We cant." Phoebe said forcefully.

"Phoebe, we have to! _I _have to!" Piper declared, wanting to console Chris and hug him to her, and apologise to him and...

She caught herself. Yes, she should want to apologise, but why did she want to get so maternal all of a sudden? Something weird was going on, but strangely, she didn't feel threatened by it.

"Piper, if you go outside you wont be able to walk because of all the emotions in the city. We'll fix this, then we'll go talk to him ok?" she asked, and took her sister and nephew upstairs.

Paige meanwhile started linking things together in her head. Her suspicions were officially becoming theories...and one was more prominent than any other.

XX

_The demon roared and sprang at Piper, his claws lashing towards her. Beside her, her ten year old and eight year old sons were looking up at her in fright as the demon tried to claw their mother. Piper rolled her eyes and blasted the demon, who gave a cry as he blew up._

_Piper sighed irritably and turned to her two sons, both of whom were cowering slightly._

"_What's wrong?" she asked, worried that the demon had hurt her sons._

_The two boys backed away from her as she knelt down in front of them._

"_You're scary sometimes." Wyatt said, looking at his mother in a slightly frightened way._

_Chris nodded earnestly as he looked at his mother with his wide, fearful green eyes._

_Piper smiled sadly as she looked at her boys._

"_Wyatt honey, I have to be scary sometimes. When I get scary, I do it to protect you and your little brother. And your silly aunties. I don't want to be scary. Trust me, I saw myself in the mirror once and gave myself a fright. I don't want to be like that. I just have to be to protect the people I love, who are you two and your aunts and uncles. Nothing is more important than protecting your family remember? So that's why I get scary." She explained in a loving, understanding voice._

_Chris walked towards his mother and looked up at her apologetically._

"_Sometimes you scare us." He said, looking upset._

_Wyatt looked at his little brother, then turned and nodded to his mother half-heartedly. Piper looked at her two little boys and smiled at them lovingly and brought them to her and hugged them tightly._

"_I don't want to scare you. It's not you I'm trying to scare, or hurt. It's the demons I'm trying to hurt." She whispered into their ears._

"_Will you ever hurt us mommy?" Chris asked her worriedly, looking at her with his green orbs._

_Piper felt her heart miss a beat as he looked at her, as though not sure she wouldn't hurt him. His brother was looking at her in the same way._

"_Oh my baby, I would never hurt you two. I love you so much, I would never hurt you. You don't have to be scared of me ok?" she said, cuddling her two sons._

_Both of her boys nodded and cuddled into her as she slowly started to rock them._

"_I will never hurt you..." she promised._

Chris hugged himself as his aunt stroked his hair gently, as tears of rejection and remorse fell down his face, as what his mother had said played over and over again in his mind.

"Chris, Piper..." Prue said consolingly, trying to get him to at least talk again.

Chris struggled to remaster his emotions. Hurt was echoing through him, travelling through every crevice of his heart. His mind was crowing triumphantly, saying that it was a good thing he hadn't told them if thats what she believed. His heart however had taken a severe beating upon hearing his mother say what she said.

"She said that she was glad she wasn't my mother..." he sniffed unhappily, as tears fell from his face and pooled on the marble floor that they were sitting on.

Prue looked at her nephew, who was sitting beside her, his face covered in tear stains and his eyes scarlet, and wondered what to do. She knew that the only person who could sort this was Piper, but she didn't know if she was allowed just to drop in unannounced and she didn't want to get into trouble if it would stop her from helping Chris. And he didn't want to tell them, and hearing Piper say what she said would make him even more unwilling to do so, for fear of rejection or of getting hurt even more.

"Chris, you never heard everything Piper said..." Prue said comfortingly, wrapping her arm around him.

Chris sniffed. His mother hated him. After him constantly missing her for the eight years that had passed since she had died, enduring Wyatt's turn and the death of everyone else he loved without her, and then coming back here and dealing with her hostility every day, it was almost too much to bear. But, he wouldn't let that stop him. He would continue to focus on his job...and if it made his mom happy, he would stay as far away from her as possible.

"She didn't have to say anything else..." he said, depression threatening to drag him down.

Prue shook her head and smiled at him, willing him to listen to her.

"Chris, Piper didn't finish because your grief interrupted her honey. But I was listening to what she said afterwards. She said she was glad she wasn't your mother, because if she was, she would feel like she had failed you, and she would never want to let you go and would just make sure you were safe and happy, which she thinks the other her obviously failed to do." Prue explained, hoping that that made sense.

Chris looked at his aunt, and could see that she wasn't lying to him. And then, guilt rushed through him. He had just jumped to conclusions...

Prue looked at him and rolled her eyes.

"Chris, don't you dare start blaming yourself. Considering how much you love Piper, you can be forgiven for jumping to the worst possible thought as soon as you heard that. But she was saying that she feels like she had failed you, even if she doesn't know that she hasn't....thank god I never became a counsellor, they'd think I was as mad as the patients." She said, going off on a tangent as the strangeness of her conversation caught up with her.

Chris sniffed and looked down sadly, feeling even worse. He had hurt his mother. Growing up, when he'd wanted his father to be there, or had done something to try and get his father's attention, his frequent, futile efforts had usually upset his mother and made her cry, and that was what made Chris feel the worse. And now he had done it to her again.

"Oh no...I upset her..." he muttered, feeling even worse than he had when he thought that she didn't want to be his mother.

Prue smiled. He was so caring about his mother, and he had frequently told her about how bad he had felt about the fact that some of the things he had had to do had upset Piper. It was clear that Chris loved his mother more than anything, perhaps due to the fact that he had lost her at such a young age, and the fact that she was the only parent he had had. And now, when most boys would still be slightly hurt by what he had heard, even if she hadn't meant it that way, he was getting more upset about the fact that he had upset her rather than what she had said to him.

"Chris, this is so silly! You have every right to be upset! You heard your own mom say she didn't want to be your mother! Even if that isn't what she meant, you are allowed to feel bad!" Prue said.

Chris shook his head.

"I know she didn't mean it...she felt bad for me, and now I've made her feel worse..." he moaned, wanting to go to her and tell her that it was alright, but unable to do so because of his mission.

Prue sighed, and figured she should try once again.

"Chris, this is killing you! It's killing your heart! Please tell them who you are!" she implored, just wanting to see her nephew happy, which come to think of it, he hadn't been since his arrival.

"Aunt Prue..." Chris said, not wanting to get into another argument.

He would love nothing more than to tell his family who he was, but he was constrained by his fears. He was afraid that if he told them, like his heart yearned to, they would reject him, and despite their recent warming to him, they would turn on him and that...he wouldn't be able to cope with it. And his other fear is that if they did accept him, their love would stop him from saving his brother. But, even his mind was starting to lower its resistance to the idea, finally understanding that a massive part of him wanted to tell his mother who he was, tell his aunts, heck, even tell his dad, regardless of the consequences. Chris was beginning to feel that the secret he had was as heavy as a building, and he wanted nothing more to relinquish it...even if it hurt him. But, something still held him back. His mind, despite beginning to comprehend that he would soon have to tell him, or else the pain and the torture of his own family not recognising him would most likely prevent him from accomplishing his mission, was still unwilling to reveal who he truly was, in case it did interfere, or in case he got hurt further.

"Aunt Prue, please try to understand this. I want to tell them. Really, I do. I just cant. Maybe once I find out who's after Wyatt...but not yet." He said miserably, looking downcast at the prospect.

Prue frowned in sympathy as she imagined the pain he must be going through, wanting to tell his family who he was so he could be loved, just like everyone else deserved to be, but not being able to. But, while she knew he wanted to tell them, his sense of duty, and his stubbornness, was preventing him from doing so. So, she didn't feel so guilty about taking things into her own hands, and having cast a spell over the Book of Shadows to hide the page with the reversal spell for the power switch on it. She was hoping that Paige, who seemed to be thinking outside of the box, and so hopefully getting close to the truth, would finally link all the points together and work out Chris' true identity. Then, he could be loved and accepted by his family, and then they could try to save Wyatt together. Mind you, if they rejected him as he so feared...well she would cross that bridge if she came to it.

Not that she thought that would happen. Yes, they would certainly be surprised, but she knew her sisters, and she also knew that they would never reject family. But, considering the kid's childhood, he could hardly be blamed for thinking that would happen. But he was a Halliwell, and he was just a loving boy trying to save his family. He deserved to be loved just like everyone else did.

"Chris...you need to go back to the manor." She said as he cleaned his face up.

"Yeah, I need to apologise to mom, think up why..." he said, looking disheartened that he was once again going to have to lie to his mother.

"And you'll need to reverse the spell." Prue said, hoping she wasn't about to get into trouble.

Chris looked at her curiously.

"The power switching spell reversal is on the next page." He said in confusion, wondering what could have changed that fact.

"Well they cant find it. Go and help them." She ordered, hoping she wasn't being too obvious.

Apparently, she wasn't, as Chris shrugged and orbed out.

"Please let them find out who he is soon!" she prayed.

She felt that the others finding out who he was without him telling them would be the only way for them to find out that wouldn't make him feel like he was betraying his mission, and didn't involve him burning out as the continued lack of love finally got to him. Yes, they were warming to him, but he was Piper's son, and Phoebe and Paige's nephew. Considering he had grown up with the three of them, he needed to feel more than liked...he needed to be loved. He was here, and just like any son, he needed to be loved.

She only hoped they found out who he was, before his heart hardened to stop himself getting hurt all the time, and hardened so much that they lost him forever.

XX

"Well it has to be in there somewhere!" Piper yelled, panicking that she would be stuck feeling everyone else's emotions until the power destroyed her like it nearly had Prue.

"Well it should be in here! If I could only remember it..." Phoebe said bitterly, hoping that they would soon be able to fix the situation before Piper vented her own anger against them.

There were shimmering orbs, and Chris saw his four favourite people standing around the book, Piper with a furious, evil glint in her eyes as she no doubt plotted a terrible and bloody vengeance against her sisters for the cockup, Phoebe looking very bitter as she realised that her memory wasn't quite as good as it used to be, and Paige looking very worried that she would get the blame for the entire situation as it was her idea in the first place, he was sure. Wyatt however looked quite content and was happily freezing the ball he kept rolling.

"Well that will teach you to try and pry when it's not wanted." He chided slightly, grinning at them as he came over to the book.

"Chris! Thank god! Please tell me you know how to sort this mess out! I'm sorry I even suggested it! You're right, we had no business trying to pry into your emotions! But we only wanted to help, please forgive us!" Paige wailed, not letting Piper even talk to him as she had wanted to do all day.

Chris smiled slightly as he flicked to the page.

"Paige, you're babbling. I know you only wanted to help. But...I didn't tell you what I'm hiding for a reason. It's not because I don't trust you," he said, anxiously looking at her slightly hurt face, "it's because I don't want you three getting hurt, I respect you all too much to do that to you." He said, not adding the fact that he also loved them too much to do that to them, though he very much wanted to.

"Chris..." Piper began, but Chris was more interested in the page he was at in the Book.

"This page isn't meant to be blank...wait a minute..." he said grumpily, then glared upwards, knowing full well how the page with the reversal spell was blank.

Piper looked at her Whitelighter, wishing he would talk to her, but at the moment he seemed more content to send daggers at the heavens, and her empathy wasn't getting her anywhere as he had blocked himself off from her.

"_Let the cause of objection become reseen_

_As I cause the scene to be once again seen_." He muttered, and the page revealed the proper spell.

"It was hidden! Who did that?" Phoebe demanded angrily, looking about as if expecting to see the culprit leap out and reveal themselves to the room.

Chris smiled slightly as his aunts and mother looked about for who could have done the deed and doomed them to having to be rescued by their young Whitelighter. They looked very annoyed, and were most likely contemplating how best to get revenge on the source of this little practical joke. Chris however knew who the culprit was, and he would be having words with the interfering dead busy body. He knew she was only doing it for him, and that did touch him, but he had asked her not to, and he was afraid that if he had still been in a state, and not just feeling guilty over having upset his mom, that he would have been discovered...and that would have opened a whole can of worms he wasn't sure how he would deal with.

"Want me to fix it?" he asked.

All three of them nodded eagerly, and he smiled.

"_Whats your is yours_

_Whats mine is mine_

_Let your powers re-cross the line_

_I refuse to give my gift to share_

_Swap back our powers through the air_."

The spell took effect, and Piper turned and blew up an old painting in the corner of the room.

"I'm back!" she cried happily.

Phoebe then levitated, and gave a whoop of victory, while Paige orbed and cheered.

"I assume Wyatt has his back..." Piper said worriedly, peering at her son in concern.

Chris smiled and picked up his ball, which had rolled out of his reach as he could no longer freeze it, which he looked rather miffed about.

"Wyatt, shield!" he said lightly, throwing the ball at his brother's head.

Wyatt giggled and created a shield over his head, allowing the ball to bounce off.

"Are you teaching my son football?" Piper asked curiously, looking at Chris play with Wyatt and wondering why she had originally been so opposed to it.

Chris nodded reluctantly, wondering if she was going to yell at him for playing with her son again. He was saved from this as his aunts approached him, and Piper looked slightly guilty, and he hoped for the right reasons.

"Ooh, I'll get whoever it was. Thank you Chris." Paige said in relief, and she and Phoebe both hugged him, making him feel a lot better than he had a little while ago.

"When I find whatever demon did that..." Phoebe grumbled as she picked up Wyatt, who waved slightly at Chris, warming his little brother's heart.

Yeah, he was his big brother, but he was still a kid, and though he didn't like some facts of it, such as changing his nappy, he did quite enjoy being with his little big brother. As he thought of this, he realised that Phoebe and Paige had both left, leaving him alone with Piper. Time to face the music.

"Chris..." Piper began, looking devastated, especially when she saw that he had been crying. He may have hidden it well, but she could see that his eyes were still red rimmed, and she knew she was the cause of that.

"Piper, it doesn't matter..." he soothed, not wanting his mother to get upset over him, feeling that he had unintentionally caused her enough hurt already.

"Yes it does. I could feel how much I hurt you by saying what I did. Chris...I never meant to hurt you by what I said, that was the furthest thing from my mind. I was just saying that if you were my son..." she said, and Chris felt an upsurge of hope, which he knew he shouldn't be feeling, "...I would never want to let you go, you just seem so sad, all the time. I'm worried about you." She said, touching his cheek.

Chris felt love for his mom rush through him, and in that moment, he very nearly just caved, rushed into her arms and told her who he was. But as usual, his sense of duty, and most likely his own stubbornness as not wanting to be comforted but wanting to be comforted at the same time, kept him from doing so.

"It's alright Piper. I...I definitely shouldn't have gotten myself into such a state." He said, feeling ashamed that he had let such a small thing get to him, even if he had heard his own mother say she was glad she wasn't his mother, despite her intentions being originally good.

Piper led him over to the old sofa and sat him down on it, and she sat down and faced him with the caring, loving brown eyes that he had missed these past eight years.

"Phoebe told me you think I'm a lot like your mom. Is that true?" she asked, holding his hands in hers.

Chris nodded reluctantly.

"Yeah, you are. You're strong, stubborn, powerful, caring..." he said, and she looked at him sympathetically.

"And because I'm so like her, you felt like it was her who was rejecting you, which is what upset you the most?" she asked gently.

Chris looked at her. She was always perceptive, but that was so close to the truth it was eerie. But, it was a ready made excuse for why he was upset without revealing his secret, so he seized upon it, and nodded slightly. Piper looked at him with such care she thought his resolve would break, especially when she gathered him to her, embracing him in a hug. He allowed himself to relax in her embrace, and he felt moisture return to his eyes as he remembered all the hugs he had missed, how he had missed his mother's touch, and how he had struggled with no parent in his life. Her hands were slightly cool on his neck, and a memory made him shiver....

"_Mom?" Chris asked as he came home, shutting the door against the fierce storm that was lashing rain against the windows outside._

_There was no answer, which was odd because Piper usually answered whenever he or Wyatt came in, and as it was his birthday, he had slightly expected that he would be immediately beset by a hug and kiss as he came in the door. Curious, and wondering if Piper was poking their dinner in the oven, he headed on through to the kitchen._

_And then his eyes were met by a scene of devastation. Broken glass was everywhere, and his mother was lying on the floor, on her side, with blood gushing from a wound in her chest, and the blood was slowly spreading across the floor._

"_MOM!" he roared in panic, rushing forward and flinging his bag to the side in his desperation to get to her side._

_Piper moaned slightly as he skidded to his knees beside her and lifted her head to look at him._

"_Talk to me mom, what happened?" he asked as he looked at the wound and knew that it was very bad._

"_Demon..." she whispered as more blood rushed out from her._

"_Come on mom, please stay awake! Dont, don't give in, please!" he begged her._

_Piper moaned slightly, and Chris decided he should try his dad._

"_Dad! Leo! Please, come down! I really need your help! Mom's hurt, she's bleeding, please come!" he cried, as he pressed his hand against the wound, trying to stem the flow of blood that was seeping across the kitchen floor._

_He kept his hand on the wound as he continued to yell, then decided that his father wasn't coming. Wyatt could heal...but Wyatt wasn't home yet, and as he walked with his friends, despite the weather, he wouldn't be able to get away. _

"_Wyatt!" Chris yelled desperately as he orbed medical supplies to him and wrapped a bandage around his mother's body. _

_The white fabric did very little, and it quickly went red. Chris summoned his phone to him and called 911, but they said it would take at least ten minutes to get there due to the storm._

"_She doesn't have that long!" Chris wailed, as her blood started to stain his trousers as he continued to kneel in the blood that was leaving his mother as quickly as her life._

_Chris was packing more bandages around the wound, as his mother's breathing became more ragged._

"_Wyatt, please come home! Mom needs you!" he yelled, but he usually ignored his brother if he was with friends, and besides, orbing in this weather was risky. _

"_Aunt Paige, I need you!" he yelled, but she was out of his range, being in the underworld investigating some demon that had attacked her the week before. _

"_No mom, please keep breathing, don't die...dont leave me all alone." He begged her, as her eyes started to lose their warm light._

_He valiantly tried to stem the blood flow, but he knew now that she was too far gone for even the greatest bandages and stitching to work. She had lost too much blood. He could feel blood all over his legs and on his hands as he struggled to keep his mother alive._

"_Come on, mom, please..." he begged, putting his hand over her and desperately hoping his healing power would kick in. _

_That particular power however did not kick in, and it was in that terrible moment, when he knew that he was going to lose his mother._

"_Mom..." he said, tears splashing onto her cheeks and making her stir slightly._

"_Chris..." she whispered, raising her blood covered hand to stroke his cheek as his green, tear filled eyes were looking down at her, as though willing her to keep living._

_She was going cold, and her hands were cold, which was bad because Piper's hands were always warm, and he knew that meant she was dying. _

"_Wyatt! Please come now!" he yelled, and he could hear his brother in his mind link, sounding panicked as he ran home, apparently deciding orbing was too risky._

"_He...cant come." Piper said in understanding, as though she was still trying to keep her son from harm even though her own life was leaving her. _

"_LEO!" Chris yelled, hoping that for once in his life, his dad would answer his calls, but he knew as he yelled that he would be ignored now, in his greatest hour of need._

"_Chris, sweetie..." Piper gasped, and Chris held her hand, willing her to survive long enough for Wyatt to get here. _

"_Yeah mom? Dont worry, you're going to be fine..." he sobbed, knowing full well that he was lying to the most important person in his life._

_Piper snorted slightly, and then coughed. Chris looked at her with all the love he felt for her, hoping even that would keep her from dying..._

"_This isn't your fault." She whispered forcefully, as though willing her little boy to believe there was nothing more he could do._

"_Mom no..." he said, tears choking his voice and blurring his vision._

"_I will always love you..." she said, and then her hand went limp in his and he knew she was gone._

"_NO!" he roared, all of his grief and loss coming out in one word, and he buried his face in her still slightly warm body, cuddling her, as though that would keep Death away from her._

"_Mom..." he whispered, as the door slammed open, and Wyatt rushed in, soaking wet, and he saw his little brother, his face, arms and legs covered in his mother's blood, pressing his face into her body, as though that would ward off Death. And his mother was lying on the floor, looking frail and broken now that her life had left her, her blood flooding the room she spent most of her time in, and her youngest son was knelt beside her, holding her unusually cold hands._

"_Mom..." he wailed and sank down beside his little brother and hugged him and his mother as the two boys mourned their mother._

_Phoebe and Paige arrived later, and walked into the kitchen to find their nephews crying over their dead mother's body. _

"_Piper..." Phoebe gasped as pain lanced through her, and the floodgates of grief opened._

_Paige went to the boys and tried to pull them away from their mother, but they wouldn't move, not wanting to leave her alone. The two sisters were in floods of tears as they finally got their bloodstained nephews away from their sister, who they moved to her room, and then the entire family sat downstairs, united in their grief._

"Chris?" Piper asked, as he forced down the horrific memories of the day she had been taken from him.

"I'm alright." He said as she hugged him.

Piper looked at him pityingly.

"Paige was right, you really are like a rake. You need to start eating properly." She said sternly.

Chris smiled at her.

"I will, don't worry." He promised.

She looked at him, then hugged him again, and he allowed himself to be taken back into her arms without murmur.

"I'm so sorry for what I said, I didn't mean to upset you." She whispered apologetically.

"It's alright Piper." He soothed, then stood up, intending to go back to P3 then go on to the mausoleum to yell at Prue.

"Come by for dinner later if you want." Piper suggested, though she didn't know why she had done so.

Chris smiled at her, and nodded.

"Ok, I will, thanks." He promised and orbed out.

Piper looked at the spot where he had disappeared, feeling a certain kinship to him, perhaps due to the fact that he and she had had similar experiences, or that the three of them meant so much to him, but she did feel connected. How odd.

XX

After Chris had left, Piper took Wyatt and went to change him. Judging by her yelps of fright, she would take a while. Paige however, couldn't wait a while. She had to know soon if she was right, as the multiple theories flying through her head were driving her insane.

"Paige, are you alright?" Phoebe asked curiously.

Paige nodded, her thoughts distracting her. Was it possible that she was right? Because if she was, everything would make so much more sense, along with why Chris was so reserved and hard to reach, especially if he had been telling at least most of the truth so far about their eventual fates. And then...if she was right, they would need to make up for a lot.

"Paige?" Phoebe asked, not sure her sister quite understood the concept of being 'alright'.

"Phoebe, I think we need to talk to Chris." Paige said, making a decision, and besides, the evidence in front of her pointed to the answer as though it were glaringly obvious, all she needed to confirm her theory was one final bit of proof.

Phoebe looked at Paige wonderingly. She was afraid that her sister was getting a bit too obsessed about him. Yeah, she wanted to find out what he was hiding from them a lot too, but for the last couple of days, Paige had been going either super maternal or super nosey depending on your point of view.

"Paige sweetie, I think you're beginning to get a bit too obsessed about this..." she said gently, hoping that Paige wouldn't take offence.

Paige shook her head.

"No Phoebe, I'm not. I think I'm onto something. I think I know why Chris is such an emotional wreck and why we mean so much to him. And call me crazy, but I think I'm right." Paige said, as she looked down at the page worth of evidence she had assembled.

"Right about what?" Phoebe asked, fearing her sister had become so consumed with her search that she would eventually wind up in as much of a state as Chris was.

"Who Chris really is." She said mysteriously.

Phoebe looked at Paige in confusion.

"What, you think Chris is evil? Like Cole was?" she demanded urgently, and also slightly miffed that her demon ex-husband from hell may be about to be dragged back into the conversation.

Paige shook her head.

"No, I think he is one of the good guys, and if I'm right, it will explain why we're so important to him, why he came back to protect Wyatt and why he's such an emotional train wreck. I think he hasn't told us who he really is, because he was trying to protect us, and by extension himself." She reasoned.

Phoebe was now totally lost, and wondered if she should tell Piper that Paige may be flipping out. But her sister seemed to be in control, so perhaps she wasn't insane, just very obsessive...it did tend to run in the family.

"Ok, you think you know what Chris is hiding from us. But he asked us not to interfere..." Phoebe said, though she was fairly sure that wouldn't deter her sister, or herself for that matter.

"Phoebe, I know I'm right. And I think that in his heart, he wants us to find out what he's hiding, he's just too afraid to tell us himself for some reason." She said, convinced she was right.

Phoebe sighed audibly, and allowed her curiosity to get the better of her.

"Alright, what do we do?" she asked, quite eager to find out what her sister thought, not that she would admit it to her.

"We go to where I found him the other night." Paige said, and orbed her sister out.

As they arrived, Phoebe looked around and shivered. This place was eerily familiar.

"Look familiar?" Paige asked, and seeing the plaque she wanted to, knew beyond any doubt that she was right about Chris. The only problem now was getting him to admit it.

Phoebe nodded reluctantly and she looked around the white marble room, and then saw the plaque on the wall, which made her shudder. This was where Prue was buried, and her plaque was right across from her.

"You see it right? Prue's plaque? This is where I found Chris the other night, in tears, underneath it." Paige said.

"You think he was here because of Prue? But why...?"

"Because I was the only one he felt he could talk to." A disembodied voice said, and there was a swirling behind them, and Phoebe and Paige turned to see Prue emerge from a cloud of swirling white orbs.

Phoebe's heart leapt into her throat as she beheld her sister who was standing with a slight smile on her face, dressed in green khakis this time. Her sister, who had been killed by the Source's assassin Shax, and the one they had been unable to talk to for the last three years, was standing right in front of her.

"Prue..." Phoebe managed and dashed forward to hug her sister, while Paige looked at them in surprise. Prue smiled and hugged her little sister happily, hoping that the Elders were all on their lunch break and couldn't see what was going on.

"Hey Phoebe, how are you?" Prue asked, stepping back from her sister and holding her arms in order to get a good look at her.

"I...I'm good. Prue, what are you doing here?" she asked, her excitement at seeing her sister making her heart pound in her chest.

Prue smiled.

"I'm here because of Chris. Hello Paige, it's nice to finally meet you." She said, turning away from Phoebe and smiling at her new sister.

"Um, thanks. Wow. I never really expected to meet you...you look good." Paige said lamely, a bit wrong footed by her other sister's appearance.

"For a dead lady? Thank you." She said, smiling and she went over and hugged her sister.

"Oh, its so good to see you! We've missed you!" Phoebe said excitedly, now that she had recovered from the emotional shock of seeing her dead sister appear before her.

"I know. And I'm sorry I left you all...but you had Paige here to take up the slack. I want to thank you Paige. You did what I couldn't, keeping the family together." Prue said, patting her sister's hand.

Paige felt an upsurge of pride as Prue, super witch, thanked her for a job well done.

"Phoebe, I've been so proud of you, for everything you've accomplished, vanquishing the Source, finally getting a job! But don't think that thats going to let you off the hook with the Cole thing." Prue teased happily.

"Oh god, you too? Paige still brings that up!" Phoebe said grumpily, sending a dirty look at both her sisters.

Paige grinned, happy that she wasn't the only Halliwell who had disliked Cole.

"And you Paige, I've been watching you very carefully too, and I am very impressed. You are a fantastic witch." Prue complimented.

"Thanks, that means a lot." Paige said, a blush coming to her usually pale cheeks.

"You're welcome. However, recently, I've just wanted to break the Elder's ban and come down and yell at the three of you!" Prue said, abruptly turning into the strict and scary big sister Phoebe so missed.

"Um, are you talking about Chris?" Paige asked, looking sheepish and Phoebe grinned, knowing full well that her sister was about to endure a Prue style telling off.

"Yes I'm talking about Chris! All three of you, treating him like he's a bomb about to go off! Since he's arrived, nearly every second day I've had the poor kid here, crying his eyes out because of the way you've been treating him! I was shocked! Fair enough, Wyatt put up his shield, but he's a little baby! You three are all fully grown adults! And you _still _treated him like he was a demon! You treated Cole better than you treated him, and let's face it, you vanquished his sorry ass! Granted, I didn't know who he was when he first appeared and started crying on my grave, which I must admit did seem a little strange, but after I _talked_, note the word as you didn't do it, talked to him, I found out who he was! But you three didn't care until recently when Paige found that picture! He shouldn't have needed to draw that picture to release his emotions! He shouldn't have had to do it in the first place! Fair enough, some of it is his fault as he refuses to tell you who he really is, but the way you treated him, it was like he was a leper! For god sake, he's f..." and then she clamped her hand to her mouth, looking horrified.

Paige and Phoebe were both looking at Prue in shock, confident the rant was over. But, despite the very stern ticking off they had just gotten, Prue's defence of Chris, and her very close slip up, confirmed it within Paige's mind. Triumph rushed through her, and she turned to eagerly share her thoughts with Phoebe, but Phoebe's mind was still on what Prue had said pre-rant.

"The Elders stopped you seeing us? Why?" she asked indignantly, furious that they didn't think they had caused the family enough heartache over the years without doing that too.

"Oh, some crap about you two not being able to move on if I popped down every week for Sunday lunch...I think they're jealous of Piper's cooking, and they're just spiteful bastards." Prue said, going off on a tangent.

Phoebe opened her mouth to complain, but Paige cut across her.

"Prue, this is important. Out of all of us, who are you most annoyed with over Chris?" she asked, her excitement making her talk very quickly.

Prue turned an approving eye on her and she smiled slightly as she said "Piper."

"I knew it! He is, isn't he!?" Paige demanded ecstatically, thrilled at the prospect, and also very happy she had been right, and feeling slightly pleased with herself that she was the one who had started all of this off.

"I don't know what you mean, but if you're going by your evidence, I'd say you were thinking along the right lines." Prue said approvingly, while Phoebe looked between them in confusion.

Paige grinned broadly.

"Prue, Paige, what is going on? What aren't you guys telling me!?" Phoebe demanded irritably, a little annoyed that they were both in on some secret she wasn't. This normally wouldn't bother her as much, but considering one of them was dead and she still knew, it did rankle a bit being the last to know.

"I'll tell you soon. I take it you're annoyed with Leo too?" Paige asked, smiling in enjoyment.

Prue narrowed her eyes and growled menacingly, and Phoebe took a step back. Yes, she knew Prue loved Leo like a brother, but family always came first with her, and she knew that no matter how much she liked Leo, he was going to be in serious trouble with her for leaving Piper behind with a kid while he faffed around upstairs.

"The less said about him the better." She said in a low, dangerous voice.

Phoebe grinned, knowing full well that Prue most likely dedicated a fair bit of time each day to plotting some terrible vengeance upon Leo for abandoning her sister. Paige took this as further confirmation of her theory, considering how Leo had treated Chris when they had got him back from Valhalla.

"So, why did Chris come to you? Why didn't he try and talk to us?" Phoebe asked, because now that she came to think of it, he had often just hung around not saying much, but had then left after a while of deliberating silently with himself over something.

"Because I was the only one who knew who he was, and every time he tried to talk to you, you all either ignored him, hurt him, accused him of being evil, or accused him of splitting up Piper and Leo! He didn't want to do that, and according to him, he only accelerated the process. The poor kid was in floods when you all said he did it on purpose, especially because of Piper..." Prue said, then broke off, fearing Chris would yell at her for that too.

"He seems to love her." Phoebe commented, pondering whether or not he actually was falling for her.

Paige grimaced at Prue, who rolled her eyes, knowing Phoebe was off on the wrong train of thought. She couldn't help being a romantic.

"But, why didn't you say anything?" Phoebe asked, coming out of her deep thought mode.

"I wasn't allowed was I? Or otherwise I'd already have appeared to you all and given you a piece of my mind. And met my baby nephew." Prue said, grinning at the thought of being able to hold baby Wyatt.

"Not allowed to by who?" Paige asked shrewdly.

"The Elders of course." Phoebe answered, as though the answer was obvious.

"Not Chris?" Paige asked, smiling, and Prue looked guilty, which Phoebe caught.

"Chris didn't want you to talk to us? Why not?" she asked, looking concerned, that perhaps Chris was afraid Prue would reveal some secret about him that he didn't want revealed.

"He knew full well that I don't like seeing him as miserable as he's been since he got here, there's so much he wants to tell you, but he thinks he cant, because he's afraid he'll just get hurt even more by your reaction to what he tells you. He knows I would tell you, to stop him being so upset and hurt, because at least it would take a burden off of him. Poor boy's got far too many as it is." She said sadly.

Paige grinned. That was it. She knew she was right, and the fact that Prue was angriest at Piper on Chris' behalf was the crowing evidence.

"Prue, you've been amazing, thank you. Come on Pheebs." Paige ordered.

"But Prue..." Phoebe protested, not wanting to say goodbye to her sister so soon.

Prue grinned.

"Dont worry Pheebs, I'll be around, and I have no doubt you'll see me soon. You lot may not technically be able to summon me yet, but Chris can, so if Paige opens the can of worms he's been so worried about opening because of how you guys will react, you'll be seeing a lot more of the two of us." She said mysteriously as she hugged Paige.

"Huh?" Phoebe asked, totally flummoxed now.

"Just go with it sis, act on instinct." Prue advised as she hugged her.

Phoebe was totally confused, but Paige smiled as she took her hand.

"It was great meeting you Prue. I hope you're right." She said happily, glad that she had finally met her big sister, who had said she was a perfectly good witch, as if in some way that made it official.

"I am. And I hope you're right too." She said, winking, making Phoebe look even more confused.

"Right what is going on with you two?" Phoebe demanded.

"Later Phoebe. We need to go and see Chris. Just one last thing though. Prue, was it you who said 'good girl' and 'thats it' to us?" Paige asked.

Prue smiled and nodded.

"Yes, I was encouraging you not to let the Chris matter go, because he'll never tell you willingly himself, no matter how much pain its causing him not to, because he's afraid it will make you hate him or reject him, or that he'll hurt you with the truth." She said.

Paige grinned.

"Thanks. Bye Prue, nice meeting you."

"Bye Prue." Phoebe said, looking very confused and upset that she was saying goodbye to her sister again.

"Bye guys, good luck!" she said, as Paige orbed out.

Prue smiled. Finally, they would find out who Chris really was. And they would love him, just as she had told him they would. She knew he might be slightly annoyed that she dropped so many hints, but she didn't care. She wanted him to be happy, and to enjoy being with his family. She knew he felt that the truth would hurt her sisters, but she knew them well enough to know they would be the exact opposite, Piper in particular. She would feel terribly guilty, certainly, but she would love her new son just as much, if not more, than she loved Wyatt. And then, his hurt could stop as well. Everyone would win.

XX

Paige orbed them into Chris' room at P3 so that Paige could confirm another few suspicions.

"Right, what do you two know that I don't?" Phoebe demanded angrily.

Paige looked at her sister, and showed her the page worth of evidence she had assembled.

"Whats this?" she asked, keeping her voice low so that Chris didn't know they were there.

"Evidence I think, enough to make me confident enough to go through with asking him a very serious question. What does that stuff tell you?" Paige asked.

"That he's either a very quick study or he knows us...but he seemed to know stuff about is before he came here..." Phoebe led off, her own mind seeing where Paige was coming from.

"Think about it. He arrives just in time to save me from a Titan, he knows all about us and knows his way through the manor, and the Book. He refused a charge so he could protect Wyatt a bit better and he can talk to Prue. Dont you think all that together qualifies something other than a hurt Whitelighter?" Paige asked as she rummaged in his bag.

Phoebe nodded, possibilities running through her head, which she was sure were akin to Paige's.

"He knew we weren't the Stillman sisters even when Leo, who's known us for six years didn't, he said he felt we were like his family, he was so upset by the way we treated him, and what Piper said about being his mom devastated him and Prue said he was something beginning with an f...!" Phoebe continued, her theory quickly catching up with Paige's train of thought.

Paige then let out a satisfied sound, and pulled a cuddly dog from his bag. It was like a spaniel, black and freckled white, with a red collar. And there was one exactly like it on Piper's cupboard, her own toy from childhood.

"And he has Fleck in his bag, and something of mine that I wont go into." Paige said triumphantly, having seen her own book with her name on the inside cover in his bag, which she knew was still safely in the house because she was on the book concurrent with that at that time.

Phoebe took the cuddly toy and inspected it. It was definitely Fleck, and he looked only a bit older than he did at the moment. The only reason Chris would have a toy belonging to Piper was if...

"You ready to find out if we're right?" Paige asked, and Phoebe nodded, excitement coursing through her, because if they were right, they had another family member. Yes they would have a lot to feel sorry for and make up for, but the thought was just so wonderful...

The two sisters walked determinedly towards the door, then Phoebe stopped short.

"What does he have of yours?" she asked in interest, as Paige had said she wasn't going to say.

"Never you mind my dear, because if you find out I shall never hear the end of it. Come on." Paige ordered, and led her sister, who was grinning slightly, out into the bar, to see Chris sipping a bottle of coke and looking fairly happy, and their hearts warmed to see that he actually had a smile on his face for once.

"Chris?" Paige asked, and as he looked up the two of them sat on either side of him, flanking him.

"Hey guys, what are you doing here?" he asked, looking vaguely worried that he was stuck in between the two of them.

"We want to ask you a question. A simple question about you, not about the future, and all it requires is a yes or no answer, ok?" Phoebe asked.

Chris looked between them, then realised that they had come from the office. Had they found out that he had broke the arm of the couch? It was an accident, he hadn't meant to...but the looks on their faces suggested to him that his unknowing aunts had something else on their mind. Slightly curious, he nodded hesitantly.

"Alright, here goes...are you Piper's son?" Paige asked simply.

Chris looked at her, his heart skipping a beat. He couldn't believe what he had just heard. After months of struggling to keep it a secret when all he wanted to do was blurt it out, after months of being very careful to protect any knowledge of himself and what he came here to do, Paige had figured it out, and the blazing look on Phoebe's face let him know that she also thought this. Deep in his heart, he had wanted them to find out, but he knew that for the sake of his mission, they shouldn't. So what was he to do? Would he deny what he truly wanted to do and deny it? Or would he be weak, emotional...human, and tell them the truth, regardless of what may happen next? Looking at two of the faces he loved, he realised that he probably should have told at least one of them who he was long before now, if not told them all. Probably Paige, as he knew full well Phoebe was useless at keeping secrets. So, taking a deep breath and bracing himself for the worst, Chris followed his heart, and nodded.

Silence met this gesture, and worry filled his heart, fear that the many fears he had mentioned to Prue would actually be justified. His aunts looked at him, and he prepared to orb out rather than see the looks of revulsion which were surely coming. Then, as one, they hugged him.

Warmth and love rushed through Chris's heart as his two aunts hugged him to them. For once he wasn't a guy from the future eager to save his family, at that moment he was a nephew who had missed his aunts. He didn't move, enjoying the experience of being hugged by them, then was horrified to feel tears in his eyes as he realised how much he had missed this, missed being loved by those he loved.

A few seconds later, they broke off from him and Phoebe led him to the sofa and sat him down and they sat beside him, looking at him with caring eyes. He was slightly upset to see that they had tears in their eyes too.

"You're our nephew...why didn't you tell us?" Paige asked, stroking his hand.

Chris looked at them and his emotions totally overwhelmed him for the first time in months. He had cried before this, but now he just let it all go, and let the regret, fear, sorrow and pain come out as he looked at his two aunts as his heart realised with delighted relief that he didn't have to be strong around them any more. His two aunts were looking at him with such love, he wondered why he hadn't told them the truth long before. Paige took the initiative and put her arms around him and he melted thankfully into her hold, tears running down his cheeks and sobs racking his body. Phoebe then hugged him from the other side and they held him tenderly, as he sobbed out all the fears that had prevented him from just telling them who he was left him. Then his tears renewed themselves as he realised how much he had missed them, and the pain of having lost them took him over and he sobbed further. His two aunts sat with him in their arms, Paige gently stroking his cheek while Phoebe rubbed his back as they sat, curled up with him. Paige looked down at Chris with tears in her eyes, feeling love already blossoming for him, this little boy who had risked his life, risked his own existence, to come back to be mistreated by his family if thats what it took to save it. That sort of dedication was beyond compare. Phoebe cuddled her littlest nephew, without benefit of time travel anyway, and realised how hard the poor kid had had it. And if everything he'd told them about his family was true, it was little wonder he was so secretive and dedicated to them all, despite how they'd treated him, because if they had been anyone else he wouldn't have bothered to come back, but because he was family, he kept going because he felt he had to, and because he had always hoped things would get a little better, and because he wanted to save them in his future. Poor little guy.

Chris finally got control of himself and took a deep breath, which rattled as he steadied it out.

"I've missed you guys so much..." he whimpered, and they hugged him tighter.

"Oh Chris honey, why didn't you tell us who you were? We would never..." Phoebe said gently.

"I was...I was scared. I was scared if I told you who I was, you wouldn't want anything to do with me. Or that if I told you, I wouldn't be able to focus on saving Wyatt..." he said, tears in his voice as Paige stroked his hair.

"Oh Chris, if you had just told us..." Paige lamented, but Chris shook his head.

"It was too risky. I didn't want to upset you guys." He sniffed.

Phoebe looked at him sadly, feeling love and sympathy spread throughout her body as she looked at her nephew.

"But all the while you were trying to stop us getting hurt, you got hurt all the more! Piper is going to love this." She said excitedly, grinning at Paige.

Chris shook his head adamantly.

"No, you can't tell mom!" he yelped in fear.

Paige looked at him with her warm compassionate eyes, then brushed a couple of tears from his cheek.

"Chris, you don't have to be worried. She'll love you just like we do." She said, trying to convince him to come clean to his mother, who it was clear mattered to him the most out of all of them.

Chris shook his head, the fear of being rejected by his mother filling his heart like a poison. He wanted to believe Paige, he wanted her to be right, but he couldn't afford to find out. Because if he told her and she reiterated her earlier comment he wasn't sure his heart could take it. And even if she did love him, how would he be able to explain the fact that Wyatt turned, the fact that she and her sisters died, and the fact that her son broke up her marriage?

"It's too risky, I've done too much, said too much..." he said, looking up at them pleadingly, his green eyes begging them to keep quiet for his sake.

Phoebe and Paige looked at their nephew, who was looking at them pleadingly, and reluctantly nodded. But, considering he had heard her say that she didn't want to be his mom, perhaps it wasn't an entirely unreasonable request, because if she was horrified, which they had to admit there was a tiny chance she would be, it would probably devastate him.

"Alright, we wont tell her. But you should." Phoebe said suggestively.

Chris looked down at his feet, tears threatening again. Yes, he loved his aunts to bits, and he was delighted that they now knew who he truly was, as he felt like a massive weight had been lifted from his shoulders, but when he was honest with himself, all he really wanted was to tell his mother who he was. And what were his reasons for not telling her? The ones that had prevented him from telling the others had been sunk, as now Phoebe and Paige knew. The truth was that he was scared. He was scared that his mother, the most important person in his life, the one he had missed for all these years, the one he loved more than the person he was trying to save, would be horrified by his true identity, and would want nothing to do with him. He wanted nothing more than to tell her who he was, run to her, feel her hugs and hear her whisper that everything was going to be alright. It was childish, yes, but its what he wanted. He wanted the mom that he should have had all his life, whose love probably would have saved Wyatt from going evil. He wanted to be back together with his mom, to cuddle up to her warmth and tell her how much he loved her, tell her how he had hated everything he had had to do to her since coming here, and see love in her eyes, rather than indifference, irritation or just plain acceptance. Should he tell her? As Phoebe knew, she would probably know by weeks end anyway as Phoebe was no good at keeping secrets, and she would probably rather hear it from him. But what if she thought he was lying? Or, as he feared in the deepest recesses of his heart, she rejected him, or said she didn't want him? He knew full well that if he heard that from her and she meant it, he wouldn't be able to go on, there was no other way about that. He loved her more than anything, probably because she was his only parent and because she'd been taken away from him when he needed her the most, when he was growing up. He had felt her absence so keenly over the years, especially when Wyatt turned and he had lost everyone else he loved, it had just make him want to cling to her more. And now that she was most likely going to find out who he was... he just wanted to go to her and tell her the truth, before he hurt her, or himself, even more. His mind, which had been cowed by Phoebe and Paige finding out his secret, was not offering any resistance as he resolved to tell his mother who he was. Good.

"Chris?" Paige asked hesitantly, and he came back to earth to look at her.

"Yeah?" he asked his aunt, feeling safe and happy in the embrace of the two of them.

"Everything you told us about the future honey...about us, your brother...your mom..." she said delicately.

Chris looked down, knowing that now they knew who he was they may as well know everything.

"Yeah...it's all true." He said regretfully, saddened to have caused them pain.

"So..."

"Mom was killed by a demon on my fourteenth birthday. Wyatt...he turned evil a few years later, went as bad as was possible. Then after that, he killed the two of you. I'm sorry..." he whispered, seeing that the two of them had gone pale with fright.

Chris was such a mess because they were all dead where he came from. His family was all dead, and he had come back here and had put up with them, the people who he grew up loving and being loved by, mistreating him since the word go. And worse off, the little baby he had to see every day was the great evil he had come back to stop, or save, depending on how you looked at it. And that same evil was the one who had killed them. The two sisters looked at each other, then looked at their new found nephew in shock. Chris looked at them nervously, wondering how they were going to take it.

The next thing he knew, Paige pulled him to her and cuddled him fiercely. Chris closed his eyes as his beloved aunt held him to her, her warmth melting the ice wall that he had had to develop around his heart. Phoebe then made room for herself and hugged him too.

"Oh my little angel..." Paige said, stroking his cheek, and he blushed slightly.

"Aw, you're cute when you blush!" Phoebe teased, and Chris felt himself go redder.

"I'm not cute! Hey, I've just told you two that you get murdered by one of your nephews, and all you do is say how cute I look? What's up with that?" he asked in confusion.

Phoebe ruffled his hair, delighted that she had a new nephew to spoil and fuss over.

"Because we know you'll save Wyatt, so we don't have to worry about it. And besides, we're going to help you now." She said more seriously.

Chris blushed again, and Paige smiled.

"She's right, you are cute." She said cheekily.

"Oh shoosh." He said, smiling slightly.

It felt right to be back with his aunts again, having them fuss over him. He turned to Paige curiously.

"You really think I can do it?" he asked nervously, looking back and forth between his two doting aunts.

"Of course we do honey. We've soon how dedicated you are. You're starving yourself for goodness sake! We know you'll manage it, especially with your brilliant aunties to help you." Phoebe said, smiling at him.

Chris smiled at her shyly, then turned to Paige, cocking his head slightly as he did so.

"Why did you call me little angel?" he asked interestedly.

Paige shrugged, looking unsure of herself, and she hated to admit it to herself, but she was afraid that she was letting him down.

"I don't know...it just sort of seemed right. Why, do you not like being called that?" she asked uncertainly, unsure of the finer details of what to do with their nephew from the future.

Chris grinned and shook his head.

"No it was just weird, you always called me that growing up, even when you were...dying...you said it to me. But you just got it a bit wrong. I'm not your 'little' angel, I'm your...'littlest' angel." He said awkwardly, though looking happy at the same time.

Paige smiled at him, glad that she had made him happy.

"Well good. But how are you the littlest?" she asked in confusion.

"Well Wyatt is taller than me, and your kids are giants for some reason...." he sniggered slightly, "you need to stand on a stool just to yell at them when they're thirteen." He said, fondly recalling the memory of Paige telling his little cousin Henry Jr, well not so little as it turned out, to stay still while she went and got a small box to stand on so she could yell at him for turning their pet dog yellow with a spell gone wonky.

"We have kids....what happens to them, when we died?" Phoebe said uncertainly.

Chris looked down at his shoes, not wanting to divulge the painful details of what happened where he came from. But telling them bit by bit would only make it worse, on him and them. So, sighing, and figuring he could have himself some time and a lot of heartache later on, he decided to tell them about the future, even though his mind had recently woken and was screaming at him not to.

"It started on my fourteenth birthday, when everything started to go wrong. I came home, and mom...she'd been stabbed," he said, his voice going thick with tears as he talked about the memory that he had tried to repress for years, "...by a demon. I tried so hard to save her...but it wasn't enough. Leo wouldn't come, Wyatt couldn't get to me, Paige was in the underworld, and I couldn't heal her. I reckon thats how I cant heal yet, its because I've developed a block for it because of what happened to her, and I couldn't do anything to save her...I let her die..." Chris said, his old fears of actually having been the one to let her die coming back full force, that floodgate opening along with all the others.

Paige was too shocked by the revelation that Piper may only have fourteen or so years to live to be of much help, but Phoebe saw Chris get overcome with tears, and rather than fret about her sisters possible fate, she took hold of her nephew and cuddled him tightly. Chris sobbed onto her shoulder as she rubbed his back tenderly, feeling the love he had had to suppress for them these past months rushing out from him, along with the remorse over the loss of his mother, and the feelings of guilt, pain and abandonment. The cocktail would be enough to floor her had she not been more concerned about his welfare. She hugged him consolingly and rocked him gently, and Paige seemed to get over her shock and stroked his cheek lovingly.

"No you didn't. It's obvious from how much you love her that you would never be able to hurt Piper. God, I can feel how much you love her sweetheart. You did not let her die, you understand me?" Phoebe said earnestly, looking at him with eyes that until recently had only been filled with resentment, but were now brimming over with love.

Chris nodded sadly, and Phoebe hugged him tighter.

"Why would you think you let her die angel?" Paige asked, her eyes narrowed in concern.

"Leo said it." Chris said simply.

Phoebe let go of him and looked at him as though he were mad, while Paige gasped.

"Chris, Leo would never..." Paige began, but he cut her off with a scowl.

"Oh yes he would. He hated me. He never wanted anything to do with me. He pretended that I didn't exist. He never popped down to see me or hold me like he does with Wyatt. I tried...I tried to get him just to acknowledge me for years," he sobbed, the pain of his father's rejection still lancing through his heart, "and he ignored me. Mom went ballistic once. She found me downstairs at three in the morning, I'd been calling for him for three hours. I called him Dad, I called him Leo, I even called him Mr Wyatt and Sir, and he still didn't come. I'd been at it for three hours when mom found me. And she was so angry...and so upset because of me...I felt worse about making her cry again than I did about him ignoring me on my birthday. He never had anything to do with me." Chris said resentfully, his anger at being abandoned by his father coming back full force.

"And he was always there for Wyatt. If we were in the same room, he would treat me like a piece of the furniture. Mom despised him for it. Every time he came down, it always wound up in a massive argument with her, which normally left her and me crying, and him going back to his lofty perch all smug and sure of himself...now you can see why I don't get on with him very much." Chris said bitterly.

Phoebe looked at her damaged nephew. Yeah, her dad hadn't been there growing up, but at least he knew she existed and occasionally sent cards, not ignore her very existence. Considering how the other Leo had treated Chris, she was surprised that Chris had sent him to such a nice place as Valhalla and hadn't sent him to the furthest depths of the underworld. She took Chris' hand, then touched his cheek caringly.

"Chris honey, I promise that we will not let him turn out like that. As soon as he knows..."

She was broken off by Chris shaking his head adamantly again.

"He cant know either." He said forcefully, and the hurt and bitterness in his eyes made it clear that all he wanted to do was forget all about his absentee father.

Phoebe looked at Paige. She knew why Chris didn't want his father to know, after so many years of bitterness between them, he was lucky that Chris even made eye contact with the man who had neglected him since day one. She knew that deep down Chris did want to tell Piper who he really was, but his father was a different matter entirely. So, reluctantly, she nodded, and Chris visibly relaxed a little.

"But why would Leo say you let her die?" Paige asked, refusing to believe that her brother-in-law could become the very sort of man she had once had a career stopping.

Chris kicked the ground resentfully.

"Because he didn't come. When I found mom, I asked for him to come down and he didn't, he never heard any of my calls. I think that made him feel bad, the fact that he didn't love me was what hurt mom, and got her killed. According to Wyatt he was making himself feel better by lashing out at me...and thats when he said it was my fault that she had died." Chris said, the hurt from that statement, of accusing him of standing by and let the one who he loved most die, sundered apart his heart.

Phoebe and Paige looked at each other in shock, unable to believe that Leo would fall so far as to do such a thing.

"But...why?" Phoebe asked weakly as he wriggled up to her to get closer to her warmth, the coldness he frequently felt in his heart from recounting these stories spreading throughout his body.

Chris sneered slightly, his resentment from his father coming through.

"Because he's an Elder. In case you haven't noticed aunt Phoebe, he's become a jerk since he became one of them." He said angrily, though refusing to move from the warmth of his aunt's embrace as they all sat together on the couch.

Paige looked at Phoebe as her sister opened her mouth to respond.

"You have to admit, he has sort of. He's become so angry and well...boring, he's got a whole 'holier than thou' thing going on. I think Chris is right, he's let it go to his head." Paige reasoned.

Phoebe then closed her mouth, and had to admit, Paige did have a point. But something nagged at her...

"But you made him into an Elder." Phoebe said gently.

Chris looked sad, then looked at her with remorseful eyes that melted her heart. He looked so sad in that moment, she knew that if Piper saw her son like that she would immediately break down and hug him like there was no tomorrow.

"No I didn't. I only accelerated the process by a week or so. He was going to become one anyway. He chose duty over his family, and abandoned you guys, and Wyatt....then a one nighter with mom later, and he didn't even acknowledge that I exist. I lied when I came back from the future. Aunt Paige was turned to stone yeah, but she didn't die. All that happened was that as a joke mom moved her outside into the garden while she got some people to free her, and she got crapped on by a bird. But the way she went on about it, even years later, sometimes made mom want to reconsider that decision." Chris said, a smile playing on his lips.

Paige shot a condescending look at her nephew and he looked at Phoebe, and two of them laughed a little. His laugh was slight, and ended all too quickly, as if he wasn't used to doing it much. But it was nice while it lasted.

"We wont let him do that to you. He wont become someone you despise, I promise." Phoebe said, and Chris wondered how he felt about that.

Yeah, he had always wanted a dad to be present, but he loved his mom enough to make up for not having one, and she had loved him the same way. Of course, he didn't know what Piper would say when she found out the truth about who he was, but that was irrelevant. But, he had given up on his dad years before, and hearing from his own father that he held him responsible for the death of his mother was never going to be forgotten or forgiven, especially when Chris loved Piper as much as he did. But, a small part of him yearned to have a father...but every time Leo appeared all the resentment, hurt and abandonment came flooding back, and turned Chris off to the idea of even giving Leo a chance. He would have to see.

"Oh, I bet we were fun to be around when he said that." Paige said, just imagining her reaction if she heard Leo say that to his son, and to her nephew.

Right now, she could feel anger coursing through her veins, like a wildfire, and Leo hadn't even done it yet. She could see from the expression on Phoebe's face that Phoebe too was furious with Leo for something he hadn't, and once he was warned, most likely would never do.

Chris looked at her with such love that it shocked her. Whatever she had done to Leo after he had accused Chris of letting his mother die, it must have been to defend Chris, and it couldn't have been pretty.

"I was...touched, and proud to be your nephew." He admitted shyly, blushing cutely again.

"Really? What I do?" Paige asked, blushing herself, seeing that whatever she had done had meant so much to her little nephew.

"You were so angry....You smacked him in the nose, I think you broke it, he was bleeding everywhere. Then, you threw him out of the house, and warned him never to come back. You warned him that if he ever tried to talk to Wyatt, or tried to come near me ever again, you would vanquish him. Wyatt and I unanimously agreed that..." he tailed off, looking slightly embarrassed.

Phoebe was looking at Paige in shock. She had been angry enough to hit Leo? But, she supposed, if Leo had walked out on them, and had then come down and had accused their nephew of letting his mother die on the day of her funeral, she supposed she had every right to be annoyed, and being the most impetuous, she would most certainly take out her frustrations, grief and anger on Leo if he started on her little nephew. Paige however was looking curiously as Chris, her eyebrow raised.

"Agreed what littlest angel?" she asked, using his pet name to try and get him to say what he was going to before.

Chris blushed furiously.

"That you were...." he said embarrassedly.

"What?" Phoebe needled, her own curiosity piqued, and a grin on her face.

"That...you were the most protective aunt ever." He said quietly, going red.

Paige heard what he said, and felt her heart swell, knowing that her new nephew though so much of her.

"Aww sweetie, thank you." She said, hugging him fiercely, and making him smile slightly, and had to close her eyes to hide the tears that had appeared there.

Phoebe smiled, but also, strangely, felt a little bit hurt. But then Chris turned to her and hugged her fiercely.

"And you're the most caring aunt ever." He whispered gently, and Phoebe felt her heart swell with love for her little nephew, and she too had to make sure he or Paige couldn't see her in order to hide the tears that were in her eyes.

Chris broke off from them, and looked as though he was ready to continue the story.

"Well after that, he never bothered to come back, I think you scared him off, just like Grams did with Grandpa. He never bothered us again. After that, Wyatt started to go off the rails. We thought it was just because he missed mom, like I did, but it turns out it wasn't. He was getting darker all the time, going...evil." Chris said quietly, as the pain from those times rushed up to try and crush him.

"Wyatt does go evil..." Paige whispered in horror, as she though the impossible thought of the little blond boy they all loved growing up to become the epitome of all evil.

"Yeah. He was going evil...and because he was my brother I didn't want to believe it. You two were worried about him, and when he ran off, you thought it was your fault, and thought he had just run away. We tracked him down, and he was with a load of demons. That's when he revealed he had turned. He used...he used his powers to turn Paige's kids evil, and Phoebe's kids had to go into hiding." He recounted, seeing the looks of horror on their faces.

"He made my kids evil?" Paige gasped, shocked that her beautiful, innocent little nephew could do such a thing to his own family.

"Yeah. You were devastated. But you knew that...we had to stop him. The three of us decided that we had to either turn him back, fix him, heal him, or...kill him." Chris said, shuddering at the thought, as after all these years, he still could not conceivably kill his big brother.

That's why he had been the one to come back. Anyone else would have killed him outright, baby or not. So it had to be Chris.

"We were going to kill him?" Phoebe asked weakly, wondering how he had gotten to such a position.

Chris looked sadly at her, then the sadness changed to pity.

"Aunt Phoebe, mom was prepared to kill you if she had to when you married Cole. We knew he was evil, the fact that he turned Paige's kids was proof enough. None of us wanted to, but we knew we would probably have to. So, eventually we went after him..." Chris tailed off, as the memory he had repressed came to him.

_The three of them looked at each other and nodded grimly. They didn't want to do it...but now they had no choice. They had to vanquish Wyatt. They had to vanquish the boy Piper had entrusted her sisters to protect, and Chris had to vanquish his big brother, the person who should be with him, protecting him, the person Chris had always looked up to and had wanted to be like._

"_Are you sure you're up to this?" Paige asked her devastated looking nephew._

"_What, up to vanquishing my own brother? No. But I will. If it means getting your kids back aunt Paige, I will." Chris promised._

_He was now eighteen, four years since his mother had been killed, and two since his brother had revealed his true colours and had turned evil. Since then, the three of them had tried unsuccessfully to try and get him back, but it hadn't worked. And now, he had turned Paige's kids evil, and had forced Phoebe's on the run, so Chris was the only one left who could create a power of three strong enough to possibly take him down. He was going to have to kill his own brother, the only member of his immediate family left, in order to save the greater good, because if they didn't, Wyatt would be too powerful and they would never stop him. They were going to have to vanquish his big brother, the person he'd wanted to be like, and he knew that doing so would devastate him, but he knew he had to do it. His aunts, both looking at least a century old, though they were barely half that, looked at him sadly. They had watched both of them grow up, and now they were going to kill the little boy they had helped deliver, the little boy they had all loved and cared for, the one they had looked after when his mother had died. And now...the two of them, and his little brother, where going to have to go and vanquish him. Phoebe looked at her nephew sadly. The fact that it was approaching the time they had decided on to vanquish Wyatt was clearly taking its toll on their little nephew, who looked devastated about what he was going to have to do._

"_Chris..." Paige began, but a shake of his head cut her off._

"_No. We...we have to. Ready?" he asked weakly._

_Phoebe looked at her green eyed nephew, which were pleading with her not to go through with this. But she knew they had no choice. They had to stop Wyatt...for Paige's kids, for her own...and for Chris._

"_Please forgive us mom..." Chris whispered to the heavens as he took his aunt's hands and prepared to orb._

"_Please, forgive me." He said, almost silently, as he orbed them to the manor, where his brother held court._

_They arrived in the attic, and Chris saw his brother for the first time in months. His hair had grown, and was going towards his shoulders, and he had a light marking of a beard around his face. His blue eyes, which had once been filled with love for his little brother, were now filled with cold indifferent surprise as he beheld his little brother and his aunts._

"_What are you three doing here?" he demanded in shock._

_Phoebe and Paige looked at him with contemptuous glares. Their little nephew had become the ruler of all evil in his quest for greater power, totally destroying his little brother in the process. _

"_You know why we're here Wyatt. You've turned evil....and we have to stop you." Paige said sadly, and then Chris flicked his brother backwards with his powers, even though it broke his heart to do it._

_Wyatt flew over the room, and Phoebe and Paige took a deep breath as they acted. Phoebe threw her potion, and it smashed on Wyatt, making him scream as it burned his skin. Paige's sent him hurtling backwards, with large drops of goo forming around his arms and legs to hold him down. Chris looked at his big brother with love and remorse. He was his big brother, and he had to vanquish him, before Wyatt got any more powerful and totally destroyed everything. Word was he was planning to take out the Elders. They had to stop him before he did that. So, with tears in his eyes, Chris threw the potion, immobilising his brother, who yelped in pain. Paige then raised her hand._

"_Crystals, circle!" she ordered, and a crystal cage appeared around Wyatt, who looked at them pleadingly, no longer seeming to be the evil tyrant who had regalvanised the underworld, but the Wyatt that they loved. _

"_No, please, I cant..." he pleaded, not wanting to die, not when he had to do so much more, in order to save the world from itself._

"_I'm sorry Wyatt, we have no choice." Paige said, as she joined hands with Phoebe and Chris, and got her other potion in her hand, ready to act._

_Chris looked at his big brother in the cage, and a horrible feeling crept into his stomach...Wyatt could fight...why wasn't he?_

"_**Piper, Prudence, Penelope, Patricia...**__" Phoebe said, her voice catching in her throat as Wyatt looked at her helplessly._

"_Aunt Phoebe..." Wyatt whined sadly as he gazed at her imploringly._

"_**Melinda, Astrid, Helena, Laura and Grace**__..." Paige continued, tears in her eyes as she beheld her trapped nephew who they had come to kill as they had no other choice._

"_No aunt Paige..." Wyatt begged, looking at her with sad eyes._

"_**Halliwell witches stand strong beside us...**__" Chris sobbed, his beautiful green eyes filling with tears as the impact of what he was about to do hit him._

"_I'll always love you little brother..." Wyatt said sadly, gazing at the person he was doing this for._

"_**Vanquish this evil from time and space!**__" they concluded, and threw their potions._

_There was a massive explosion, and the shockwave sent all three of them flying so that they hit the wall of the attic and dropped down to the ground. The windows shattered into pieces, and the Book of Shadows, which Wyatt had, was thrown wildly through the air. A shockwave of fire passed over them, and Chris opened his eyes to force himself to look at the place where his brother had been standing._

_And he was still there._

"_Oh no..." Chris said, realising that his brother was now mad, as there was a terrifying glint in his eye. _

_Wyatt looked down at himself. Despite that being the strongest spell in the Book, he was still alive. And his family, the people he was trying to save by ending the endless battle between good and evil, had just tried to kill him. He growled menacingly, and conjured a Darklighter crossbow. Chris knew what was going to happen before it did, and he leapt up and pushed his aunt Paige out of the way, as his brother let out a betrayed, rage filled scream and fired. Paige's eyes widened as she saw the arrow flying towards her, and saw that unless she did something it would plunge through her remaining nephew. So, mustering all her strength she shoved Chris backwards, and let the arrow lance through her chest._

"_NO!" Chris yelled in despair as his aunt dropped down to the floor, clutching at the arrow and giving ragged breaths._

"_Sorry aunt Paige, but...you did betray me." Wyatt said coldly._

_Phoebe crawled to her sister and grabbed her hand in terror. She couldn't lose another sister, and Chris couldn't lose someone else he loved._

"_Paige..." she whispered._

"_Wyatt, please, if you love me, heal her!" Chris yelled desperately, refusing to let another one he loved die, and trying to heal her, even though he knew it was futile._

"_She betrayed me." He spat, and Chris gave one frightened look at his brother, and he was orbed his dying aunt, himself, and a devastated Phoebe away._

"Chris?" Paige asked, making him shudder as he came back to earth.

"Feather, what's wrong?" Phoebe asked, not quite knowing why she called him feather, but it felt right in her heart.

Chris looked at her in surprise.

"How did you know to call me that?" he demanded, slightly freaked out by the fact that his aunts, who had only just figured out who he was, were using the pet names for him they had always had whilst he was growing up.

Phoebe shrugged.

"It just sort of came out...is that what I call you?" she asked uncertainly, and she smiled uncertainly at Chris nod, though he looked a bit weirded out.

"Well never mind that, what's wrong?" Paige asked in concern, and Phoebe forgot that she had figured out what to call him and looked at him in worry.

"The first time we went after him we hit him with everything we had...and it didn't work. He was scary, the scream...and then he killed aunt Paige with a Darklighter arrow. You died...trying to protect me, even when I was trying to protect you." He said, and let tears fall from his eyes.

Paige looked at her nephew. He loved her so much he had tried to take a shot for her...reaching over she started stroking his hair, putting it's slightly long length behind his ears and cuddling him into her embrace.

"You died...you left us all alone..." Chris said, his body shaking as the image of his bloodied, beautiful aunt telling him she loved him refused to leave his mind, making him shudder in dread, not wanting to watch them all die again.

"Well...I wont this time. I promise. Your mom and I wont leave you all alone." She said forcefully, blinking tears from her eyes as she realised how much her nephew really did love her, a love that he had had to repress ever since coming here, in order to get on with his mission, despite the mixing pot of emotions he must have been feeling ripping him apart.

Phoebe looked at her nephew sadly. He'd been through so much, and being with the family that he obviously loved to bits and having them treat him as if they didn't care about him must have ripped him apart. She looked at her sister, who had tears falling from her closed eyes as she held their nephew to her.

"What did we do after Wyatt...killed...Paige?" Phoebe asked quietly, struggling with the concept.

"He started to kill your kids to try and lure you out. I think the fact that he felt we had betrayed him and the fact that he had killed someone he loved destroyed all the humanity inside him. We went on the run, he killed your three kids...and then we got captured by one of his assassins and taken before him. He ranted at us for betraying him, and then...he killed you too." Chris said, another sob wracking his body.

Paige looked at Phoebe in shock. Wyatt grew up to kill both of them? But while she thought about what they could tell her about what her son would do, Phoebe took Chris from her and cuddled him herself, wrapping her arms around him protectively.

"And you had no one left..." she said sadly, realising how lonely and abandoned he must have felt.

"Yeah...it kind of sucked." He said lamely, as Paige came back to herself and stroked his cheek while Phoebe held him tightly.

"I'm not surprised. But look on the bright side..." Phoebe whispered.

Chris sniffed and looked at her, his green eyes shining with tears.

"What bright side?"

"It wont happen to little you, because the lot of us are going to make sure Wyatt doesn't go evil. You hear me? We're going to save him, and save you in the process ok feather?" she asked gently.

Chris smiled at his two aunts, then hugged them both to him and closed his eyes, savouring their warm, tender hold.

"I've missed you both so much..." he whispered lovingly, and the two of them hugged him fiercely, love burning through them.

They separated, and his aunts looked at him with such love and affection he felt silly for not telling them sooner. He was about to say something else when there was a glow from behind them and Chris turned to see Leo.

Leo nodded at the girls, then stared at Chris.

"Chris, you're to come before the Elders tonight." He said bluntly, without so much as a 'hello' to his sisters in law.

"What, what for this time?" Chris asked resentfully, not needing his father interfering with him right now.

"For the murder of two Valkyries. They're good beings, and you killed two of them." Leo growled, hoping that this would be the opportunity he needed to get the shady youth out of his life forever.

Because something just didn't add up about Chris. He said something was after Wyatt, but refused to say what. He refused to take on any other charges, but sometimes when the girls called for him he didn't answer. And above and beyond all his numerous other problems he had caused his and Piper's breakup, by not telling them about the attack on the Elders, so they could still be together. It was his fault.

Chris rolled his eyes. Leo obviously still blamed him for Piper and his breakup, and it was getting very old. He had such issues with him, he probably saw Chris as competition for Piper or something stupid like that. Either that or he blamed Chris for not being able to save his precious Elders. The man shouldn't have joined them, and should have stayed with his family, in both timelines, even if that would have made Chris' job more difficult if he had remained. But he wouldn't have minded...a small part of him still wanted to get to know the dad he had never had.

Paige and Phoebe glared at Leo, who was totally oblivious. He was being so cold, and Phoebe only just realised that he had a sort of 'holier than thou' thing going on, and to be honest, it was pissing her off. And the way he was treating her nephew, his son...he may not know it but that didn't excuse the fact. He was treating him like he was something unpleasant that he had put his foot into.

"Leo...hi, remember us? Your sisters in law?" Paige said resentfully, and Leo broke off from scowling at Chris to look at her, softening his features as he did so.

"What's up?" he asked, his tone much lighter than it had been when he had been talking to Chris, who was glaring daggers at his father, resentment, abandonment and a touch of hatred creeping into his body.

Phoebe felt the mess of emotions he felt for his father, and squeezed his hand, and he relaxed a little, but he was still glaring at Leo, just as Paige was doing.

"Well you're going to take Chris before the Elders because he killed two Valkyries. Didnt you kill two of them as well?" she asked waspishly.

Now that she knew who Chris was, she wasn't going to let anyone push him around. And if that meant taking Leo down a few pegs, which she privately felt he was in need of, then so be it.

Leo frowned at her, worried that she was taking Chris' side. Fair enough Paige had been the one most accepting towards him out of all of them, but she knew he was untrustworthy. So why the sudden change? Could Chris have made her change her mind?

"Paige, that was different. I was protecting you..." he said, and was annoyed to find himself being on the defensive.

"And he was protecting Piper...from a spell that you cast I might add." Paige said waspishly, finding him slightly hypocritical for trying to pull Chris up for something that he had also done.

Chris looked at his aunt with thanks, fondly remembering the other time she had defended him to his father. Not that he wanted her to break his nose again...he hated mess just as much as his mom did, and it would undoubtedly go onto the carpet and he'd have to clean it up.

"And not to mention that him getting us those pendants helped us save you from Valhalla." Phoebe said petulantly, glowering at him.

Leo looked at Phoebe in surprise. Paige he could maybe understand defending Chris. But her too? Something was definitely not right here...

"Look Leo, if you want to bring him up on those charges, you should be on trial as well. Or is this new Elder thing making your head so inflamed you cant see that?" Phoebe continued, and Chris smiled at his aunt, love for her swelling his heart.

Leo took a step back and glowered at Chris.

"Alright, don't come. But I'm watching you." He warned and orbed off huffily.

"Thank you." Chris said thankfully, looking at them warmly.

"You're welcome. And I must agree that he is starting to get on my nerves with this Elder routine. That doesn't make him better than anyone else, least of all you." Phoebe said, ruffling his hair affectionately.

"Thank you aunt Phoebe." He said, looking down shyly.

"It's ok. Right sweetie, we're going to go and let you tidy yourself up a bit. Your eyes are a bit red and everything." She said caringly, and got up.

He got up and hugged them both.

"I love you both so much." He whispered to them.

"We love you too angel." Paige said as she kissed his cheek.

As they left, he looked fondly after his aunts. Some of his family knew who he was. He didn't have to hide anymore. And it felt good. He would have to thank Prue...after yelling at her of course. Feeling the happiest he had done in months, he headed to wash up as the girls headed home, hoping that Chris would come by later on so they could get him to tell Piper...as that was what he really wanted.

XX

Piper was playing with Wyatt when Leo orbed in. Piper looked up at her ex-husband, the pain she always felt when she saw him coming back full force. And yet, in her heart, she knew their new Whitelighter wasn't to blame for what had happened to them. He had just...sped it up.

"What are you doing here?" she asked as Wyatt laughed at seeing his daddy.

Leo grinned down at his son and picked him up, rocking him affectionately as he looked at Piper.

"I think Chris might have done something to Phoebe and Paige." He said worriedly.

Piper rolled her eyes. She might have known it would be about Chris. Its not as if Leo would come and visit her for any other reason than his issues with their new Whitelighter...

"What makes you think this?" she asked, resigned to the conversation as she got off the floor.

"Well I went to P3 to tell him to come before the Elders, and they basically told me to back off and leave him alone." He said, irritated that they were siding with the young guy even when it was obvious that he had been the one who sent him to Valhalla.

Piper opened her mouth in horror, though she was being sarcastic.

"Did they? The rats! They are clearly possessed by evil forces. I shall vanquish them at once!" Piper said scathingly, and picking up two empty potion bottles.

Leo shot her a look that could have melted the Arctic, and she sniggered. She then looked at him sympathetically but with a patient air as though she was explaining to Wyatt why his ball didn't always roll into his hands.

"Leo, I know you don't trust Chris. Fair enough. And you might be right, he might have sent you to Valhalla. But the kid's been through so much Leo, just back off. And as you know, we aren't the easiest of charges, and...I reckon we've made him feel pretty bad ever since he arrived here. But just because we're being nicer to him doesn't necessarily mean he's done something to us, we all are." Piper said, not bringing in how her ex's new Elder complex was grating on all their nerves and Chris' in particular.

"Well fair enough, but I still think he must have done something to them. They were suggesting I should be on trial for killing two Valkyries." Leo said resentfully, hoping that whatever Chris had done to Phoebe and Paige he hadn't done to his wife, who he still loved no matter what.

"But you did kill them." Piper said in confusion, wondering what his point was.

"Yeah, to protect them. And I think its because I was trying to get him before the Elders for the same thing." He said, admitting that he did seem a bit hypocritical now he came to think about it.

"Well they probably thought you were being a hypocrite. And he did it to protect me...which he wouldn't have had to do if you hadn't done some voodoo on my memory." She said resentfully, not quite ready to forgive him for that.

But...why had Chris been so concerned? Back then the girls had barely tolerated Chris, aside from Piper who had been tolerating everything at that point. But he had still seemed genuinely upset over what had happened, and according to her sisters he had been very sarcastic to Leo when they had gotten him back, and he was annoyed when Phoebe hadn't raged at Paige like he thought she was going to. Maybe their young Whitelighter had always cared for them a lot more than they had realised, and despite all they had done to make his job difficult, he had kept coming back. He truly did care for them a lot, he just didn't show it so that it was obvious. And he was going to vanquish a demon in order to save them as well. How odd.

"Well, I still think you should keep an eye on them...and him." Leo warned as he handed Wyatt back to her.

"I will Leo don't worry. And never stop watching out for us ok?" she asked, smiling at him slightly.

He grinned back as he orbed out, waving to Wyatt as he did so. Piper sat down on the bed and took a pen and a notepad from her cabinet, and began jotting things down that she needed for the shopping. But her mind was focused on Chris, and she began absent-mindedly writing that he cared enough to vanquish a demon to save them and that he had been rather let down by the severe lack of yelling at Phoebe to Paige on her behalf.

XX

"We have a nephew, oh I'm so excited!" Phoebe said ecstatically as they entered the house.

Paige hit her in exasperation.

"Chris is right, you cant keep your mouth shut! I'm excited too, we have a new nephew, its super cool, but he asked us not to tell Piper, so keep quiet lady!" Paige scolded.

Paige did have to admit, the fact that Chris was their nephew, despite everything the kid had been through, was exciting. She was ecstatic to find that the neurotic kid was actually related to them, and she felt a feeling of pride as she realised that it was her investigations that exposed the truth about him. Yeah, he had lied to them, and had tried to manipulate them several times, had killed those Valkyries and most likely was the one who had sent Leo to Valhalla. But when they looked back on everything he had done with the eyes of aunts rather than of ungrateful, irate charges, they all made a lot of sense. He had lied and manipulated them so that Wyatt wouldn't turn evil, and so that when he grew up he would have a brother who loved him, a mother who was always present and loved him with all her heart, and two aunts who would love and care for him nearly as much as his mother would. He had sent Leo away so that he could get close to them, maybe find some measure of the affection he had once had, and use that to help him save Wyatt....but they hadn't been much of a help to him. Yeah, he hadn't given them much reason to trust him, and he would probably be the first one to admit it. But they had treated demons better than they had treated him sometimes, there was no denying that. The kid had tried time and time again, proving his good intentions despite his shady methods, which she supposed he felt he had to use in order to make his lot easier. It was only now did she realise how badly they must have hurt him with their treatment of him. He'd been so scared of them not trusting him and not accepting him for who he really was when he had first arrived, he had continued with his lies in order to protect his heart...and he should never have had to do that.

Phoebe thought happily. Yeah, Chris had a lot to make up for, and she had felt the terror in his heart that his family would never accept him or even like him. He was scared that they wouldn't love him, as he loved them, a love that he had had to suppress for the sake of his mission. He had a lot of things to explain. But now that they knew why he had done all he had done, things were going to be different. He was just a kid who had risked everything, his own existence, to come back and save his family, and they should feel thankful for that. And if he had things to make up for so did they, and she knew it. The way they had treated him had been completely horrible and despite all he had done to prove that he was on their side, they had still treated him like he was a demon. They would have a lot or work to do, and she knew that all sides would feel very guilty. But she knew deep in her heart that Piper, despite Chris' fairly justified misgivings, would love her son more than he thought possible, and would feel tremendous guilt for all that had occurred. She would want nothing more than to fix things with her son and get to know him, and love him just like he deserved to be.

Piper came down the stairs and saw her two happy sisters, and immediately thought something was wrong. People didn't come in with smiles that big in this house...it normally jinxed things.

"What are you two grinning about?" she asked suspiciously, wondering if they had found some guy they both liked and were going to fight over, like she had once done with Leo.

"Oh we're just very happy people!" Paige said brightly, and Phoebe rolled her eyes at her younger sister. Could she be any more obvious?

"No you're not. Just two days ago you came in storming and raging about the weather, at the same time." Piper commented dryly, as they had been moaning about what the humidity was doing to their hair.

"Well today is a nice day and the sun is shining!" Phoebe said, hoping to deflect Piper's questioning, because she knew full well that if their subject matter changed to Chris, the real reason why they were both happy, she would blurt out the truth, and she didn't think her new nephew would appreciate her telling his mom before he was ready.

Piper narrowed her eyes, something was off here.

"What have you pair done? Have you been to see Chris?" she asked, the possibility that Leo's trust issues might actually have some grounding intruding into her mind.

"Yeah...we did." Paige admitted, and Phoebe opened her mouth to blurt out the exciting news.

Paige saw this and kicked her sister in the shin, making Phoebe cry out in pain. Piper looked at her sister in surprise as she hopped up and down on the spot, cursing away. Paige looked at her elder sister furiously. She hadn't meant to kick her quite that hard, but Chris had asked them not to tell Piper, and Paige felt it was important that Chris told her himself unless they had no other choice.

"What was that about?" Piper asked as Phoebe rubbed her shin and looked grumpily at Paige.

Paige sighed, then the lie came to her in a metaphorical shining light.

"We were attacked by a demon. We promised not to tell you and I thought she was going to cave, but it doesn't matter now, you know." She said smoothly, and Piper, while she still looked suspicious, was also slightly mollified.

"Is...Chris alright?" she asked, not quite sure where her motherly concern for him was coming from, but she felt a sudden desire to protect him.

"Yeah, he's fine. He got out the way and nicked the athame from the guy we used to stab him." Paige said, glaring at Phoebe until she got the hint and nodded in so called agreement.

Piper felt a warm glow in her heart, which she found strange. Why would she be so relieved that Chris was alright? Maybe...maybe she had been wrong, and Leo had been right. Slightly worried that he had a cast a spell on them to make them more malleable to him, in order to try to get them to try some new crackpot idea to protect Wyatt, she looked to the attic, and resolved to go up and see what spells could do that.

She nodded at them then headed for the stairs, determined to find out if Chris, despite their discoveries of the last few days, actually was using magic to manipulate them. She hoped it wasn't true. Now that she came to admit it, she really did quite like and care for her young Whitelighter, and seeing him struggle to fit in with him despite the fact that he had originally hadn't been wanted. And he seemed to care for, and perhaps even in some way love them, so maybe she should give him the benefit of the doubt. But when she thought about her sister's cheeriness, and her own strange concern, she felt there was something she didn't know. So maybe he had done something...perhaps she should ask him.

"Piper!" Paige called.

"Yeah?"

Paige looked at her sister penetratingly.

"It wouldn't hurt to give Chris a break, you know?" she said quietly.

Piper looked at Paige, resentment at her comment dwarfing her alarm that she said it. Had Chris done something?

"I am giving him a break!" she protested.

"Well, give him a bit more of one." Paige said gently, and Piper nodded, before dashing up to the attic.

Paige looked at where Piper had disappeared. Something had obviously worked her up, and she hoped that it had to do with Chris, but that she hadn't gotten the wrong end of the stick. Something just didn't feel right. And the fact that she had lied so effortlessly to her sister was slightly worrying. Was she the one who taught Chris to lie? Now that she came to think of it, she supposed that Chris was probably once an honest person...just as she had a feeling that he had been the sensitive one growing up. It was just a feeling she had that she couldn't quite shake, and it hurt her to see that her nephew had had to lose those two qualities in order to survive. And that did suck.

Still pondering the wreck that her nephew had become to try and ensure that his family in the future survived, she turned to Phoebe in exasperation.

"That hurt!" her sister said ruefully.

"Well serves you right big mouth! Chris asked us not to tell Piper because I'm sure he wants to tell her himself, and you nearly blew it. So you my dear are going to come with me and we are going to keep you locked away from Piper until Chris plucks up the courage to tell her!" Paige scolded, taking her hand and dragging her towards the kitchen.

"What if he doesn't? He cant just drop the bombshell on us that he's our nephew after all he's done and expect us to keep our mouths shut!" Phoebe protested as Paige sat her down.

Paige glared at her sister. She knew she just wanted to be able to talk about their nephew, but Paige had a sneaking suspicion that a fair bit of her just wanted to rant about all he had done...and she wasn't going to let her do that to Chris. He had just told them who she was, and yes Phoebe loved him, but there was a lot of resentment from Phoebe as well. Its not as if he had wanted to do everything he had had to do. And if she was their most protective aunt, she was going to live up to that rep, even if it meant going against her older sister,

"Firstly, we rumbled him, so technically, he didn't drop it on us. Also, he can expect us to keep our mouths shut because we are family and thats what they do. Leo never told anyone you hadn't vanquished Cole, so you are not going to blurt out to Piper or Leo who he really is until he's ready. And we will find out why he has done everything, but in due time. Now I know you love him Phoebe, but your ranting about him coming along and changing everything will just turn him against you. We've put him through enough as it is, and once Piper finds out who he is, if she finds out all you want to do is tell her because you want to complain about what hes done when he had no other choice, all you'll do is turn him, her and me against you! You told him you love him! So make good on that! I know you do love him Phoebe, but moaning about what he's had to do and all the lying will only drive him further away from you. So for god sake, keep your mouth shut, and let Chris tell his mom who he is in his own time!" she said passionately, her hair flying everywhere.

Phoebe looked at her sister in surprise, then finally found her voice.

"Paige...its not that I want to yell at him, I just want to know why he did everything. I mean, he broke up his own parents for goodness sake! Why?" Phoebe asked.

Yes, she did want to yell at Chris for everything he had done, but that wasn't why she wanted to let Piper know. She wanted to let her know so that every time she appeared she could make a fuss over him like she ought to be able to, not have to keep it a secret that she had a new nephew to spoil. She wanted answers, but Paige obviously thought she had been lying to Chris and that all she really wanted to do was just tell him off for coming along and turning everything upside down.

"Paige, you've got the wrong idea. Yes, I do want to tell him off slightly for everything he's done. But the main reason I want to tell him off is because he split up his parents, he might never have been born! And then we wont even have a new nephew to argue about! I love him as much as you do Paige, I'm just worried that we don't have enough time to try and get Piper and Leo back together so we don't lose him!" Phoebe said, showing that she cared very much for her new nephew, and only wanted to berate him for risking his own existence...and for stealing her spare toothbrush, as she still hadn't found it and assumed he had taken it.

Paige looked at Phoebe, with only a little bit of guilt. She still wanted to berate her nephew. But now that she came to think of it, she had a point.

"Alright, fine, we'll tell him off for putting himself at risk, but thats it. We'll just talk to him about everything else agreed?" Paige said forcefully.

Phoebe nodded eagerly, smiling at the prospect of Chris being her nephew. And then a horrible thought occurred to her, and she dropped the apple she had just picked up.

"What's up?" Paige asked as she boiled the kettle.

Phoebe looked at Paige with an ashen face.

"Paige...remember when we were Goddesses?" she asked weakly, her memory horrifying her.

"Yeah, why?"

"I came onto Chris!" she squeaked in disgust.

Yes he was very attractive, having inherited his mom's looks, but he was her nephew. She had come onto her own nephew!

"Oh my god, you're sick! Get help!" Paige cried in disgust, her face contorting as she did so, throwing a glass of water that Piper had left on the table over Phoebe, who spluttered in shock as the water streamed down her face onto her clothes.

"You came onto our nephew you sick bitch!" Paige yelled, thoroughly weirded out.

Yes, she hadn't known that Chris was their nephew at the time, but that wasn't the point! No wonder the poor kid was such a mess, his own aunt had tried to do the dirty on him!

Phoebe spouted a bit of water from her mouth, and looked irritably at Paige.

"I feel bad, I feel disgusted with myself and thoroughly weirded out...was the water over the head really necessary!?" she demanded angrily.

Paige laughed as she looked at her soaking wet sister.

"No, but it made me feel better!" she said brightly.

Phoebe glared at her in annoyance and headed upstairs, pondering how the hell she would explain that to Chris' soon to be very overprotective mother, and how she would apologise to him in the process...without Piper blowing her up for coming onto her son. Shuddering at the thought of possible imminent death, she headed into her room.

XX

Piper looked at the entry on enchantments in the book. Among other things, they were described as being able to bend someone to the user's mind or will...and hadn't Phoebe and Paige been bent to Chris' will and way of thinking? The problem was they'd all started to trust him a little more, and apologise to him, and Piper had to admit, that she'd even felt a small measure of love for their Whitelighter. He was actually quite endearing how he'd put up with all they'd put him through on his mission to protect her son from some unseen evil, how he'd been so determined to protect her little boy, and them, from the unseen threats of the future. And they had been apologising to him and trying to make it up to him a little, so why would he suddenly cast an enchantment on her sisters?

She had to admit, it made no sense, even if Leo thought it did. Things had been better between all four of them the last few days, and Piper knew in her heart that Chris would never do anything to deliberately hurt her or her sisters. So it made no sense that he would enchant them...maybe they were just a bit more protective. Did they know something she didn't?

Piper looked at the entry on enchantments, and felt despair in her heart. For some reason she really wanted to believe Chris hadn't enchanted them, and after all she did have no proof. So...maybe she should leave it. But then she thought of her sisters odd behaviour downstairs, and she knew something was amiss. Either they were hiding something from her...or Chris had acted against them.

Piper sighed as she looked at the book, wondering what to do. Her sisters could maybe just be overcompensating. Had he said something to them about her? Maybe that was it... Because in her heart, where she was surprised to feel love developing, she knew he wouldn't enchant her sisters. And that should be good enough for her. But she knew Leo wouldn't let go of his issues for Chris. So, maybe she could tell him she tried...or maybe she should just Leo to back off and leave the boy alone.

There was suddenly a swirl of orbs and Piper jumped, to see the smiling face of Chris. There was something familiar about that smile, and she found herself inexplicably happy about seeing him.

"Hey Piper." He said, grinning at her.

Chris felt better than he had done in such a long time he could hardly stop smiling. His aunts knew who he was, and rather than feeling guilty about that, he was ecstatic. Once he told his mother, he could drop all the pretences, and provided he stayed focused on his goal, the fact that his family knew who he was wouldn't bother him in the slightest. When Paige and Phoebe had hugged him, it had reminded him so much of what he had lost and what he missed, and he realised that if he kept going he would only turn miserable and be of no use to anyone. Prue had been right (not that he would admit it to her) when she said that him not telling the ones he loved most who he was causing him so much hurt that he couldn't focus properly. So if he told the person he loved the most who he really was, hoping that she wouldn't reject him in the process, he could stop shouldering the burden of secrecy and make the most of his time with his family...because he knew that if he didn't have them in the future, he would regret not spending more time with them here for the rest of his life.

Piper smiled at her young Whitelighter, and then felt uncertain and guilty. When she looked at his eager young face, with his bright green eyes, which for a change looked so full of happiness rather than full of sadness as they normally did, she knew that this boy could never hurt her family willingly. And despite everything he had done since arriving, she had a feeling that it had hurt him to do it as much as it had hurt her to live through it. He wouldn't hurt them, of that she was sure, and if Leo didn't believe that of the boy he could go stick it.

"Hey Chris, why are you so happy?" she asked, wondering if it was contagious, as she felt her heart get lighter with just seeing her Whitelighter, which she still thought was a bit odd.

And the fact that he was happy as well meant that it wasn't just his sisters who had been affected if there had been any voodoo going on. So he was off the hook.

Chris grinned at his mother, and took a deep breath, his mind screaming at him not to do it, but he was ignoring it. He wanted her to know. But then he saw her look guiltily at the enchantment spell, and he stopped short.

"Piper, what's wrong?" wondering how his aunts possibly could have become enchanted in the half hour since they had left him.

Piper shut the book, hiding it from his view, and he looked at her worriedly.

"Are au...are Phoebe and Paige ok?" he asked, his loving concern for them coming through, and replacing his preoccupation with telling his mother who he really was.

"Yes, they're fine Chris, nothing's wrong. What's up?" she asked, hoping she would be able to gloss over the fact that she had been wondering if he was capable of enchanting her sisters for some unknown end.

Chris looked at her. She had the exact same face he had inherited when he was telling a lie, her eyes refused to meet his and her mouth puckered up a little. He'd learnt to pathologically lie in the future in order to survive so he couldn't be caught at it now, but she was clearly lying to him.

"Piper come on, tell me what's bothering you. I'm your...Whitelighter." he finished, not wanting to add the news that he was her son on at the end of the sentence.

Piper sighed and looked down at her shoes, feeling ashamed that she had ever thought it in the first place. This sweet guy, enchant her sisters? If he had why would he be so eager to get her to talk about it?

"Well...Leo felt that the girl's behaviour was a bit odd when he went to see you, and he told me that he was worried that..." she tailed off, not wanting to go through with the rest of her sentence because she knew it would hurt him.

"Worried about what?" Chris asked, an inexplicably bad feeling forming in the pit of his stomach.

"He was worried that you had...enchanted them, he felt that would explain why they were suddenly being so nice to you." She said reluctantly, refusing to meet his eyes as she did so.

Chris sniffed in annoyance. It figured that his dad, who had never cared the slightest about him, would automatically suspect anyone who cared for Chris in any way. But if his mom thought that would bother him...unless...

Chris looked at her with soft green eyes which were begging her not to answer the question the way he thought she was going to answer it.

"And you thought that as well didn't you?" he asked quietly, willing her not to say yes.

The forlorn look Piper gave him told him everything he needed to know, and Chris looked away from her to hide the hurt in his eyes. His own mother thought that he would deliberately cast a spell on his aunts just to improve his standing with them. His own mother, the one who had promised never to hurt him when he was little, felt he would deliberately endanger his family, despite all that he had done to show them he was on their side. Hurt and ice were going through his heart, rebuilding the defences that Phoebe and Paige had breached when they had found out who he was. It was better to remain detached from everyone, he thought bitterly, the people you love most cant hurt you that way. He looked up at Piper and was surprised to find tears of hurt welling in his eyes but he didn't care. The injustice of it stung, and the fact that he was hearing it from his mother, the person he loved most in the entire world, just made it all the worse, especially when he had finally worked up the courage to come here and tell her who he truly was.

"Piper, after everything I've done to protect you three and Wyatt, you still think I'd do that?" he asked resentfully.

Piper looked up at Chris, and was devastated to see tears in his eyes. She hadn't wanted to upset him, she hadn't wanted to say anything in the first place. She would kill Leo for making her think like that in the first place.

"Chris, I didn't mean to upset you..." she said, taking a step towards him, but Chris turned his back on her to hide the tears he had in his eyes.

His own mother didn't trust him enough to think that her sister's newfound love for him could be anything more than a spell. And that hurt, a lot. His own mother thought he was underhanded enough to do that to his own family, even if his dad had put her on that thought train in the first place. Hurt and pain wrenched through his heart, as, against his wishes, tears fell from his eyes onto the floor.

XX

Phoebe, mercifully dry again and in new clothes, gasped as she felt a great emotional pain coming from the attic, making her stagger against the door frame as Paige came up with the washing.

"Phoebe?" she asked worriedly, taking her sisters elbow to balance her.

Phoebe gasped as she located the source of the pain...her nephew.

"Piper's said something to upset Chris..." she gasped.

Paige looked at Phoebe worriedly. Had Piper reacted badly to the news that Chris was her son? That would kill him...

"Oh, no, don't worry, it's not that. He just feels really hurt that she would think something of him if I'm reading this correctly." Phoebe soothed her sister, and herself.

Because if Piper had rejected Chris, his pain would be glowing out like a beacon and she would hardly be able to function. This, while it still hurt, wasn't anything that drastic, it had probably just hurt a lot more coming from Piper than it would from anyone else. She hoped.

XX

Piper looked at her young Whitelighter, and appreciated for the first time how much they really meant to him. What they thought about him obviously meant so much, and what she thought about him mattered more to him in particular. Devastated guilt was clawing at her conscience as her tearful Whitelighter, seriously hurt by her accusation, turned to face her, his beautiful green eyes rimmed with tears. She had never wanted to hurt him, and she felt a lot of resentment towards Leo for even making her think he would do that in the first place. Yes, his methods were sometimes a little dubious, but his heart was definitely in the right place, and in hindsight, he had never deliberately endangered them by sending them after a demon that could have the remotest chance of hurting them. Their opinion of him obviously mattered to him more than he had ever let on, and since their recent reassessment of their treatment towards him, it had become a lot more apparent. She walked towards him, then wrapped him in a hug. She wasn't quite sure why, but it felt like the right thing to do. He sniffed a little and cuddled into her, and she guided him to the sofa and stroked his hair absently.

"I'm really sorry Chris, I never meant to upset you. I should never have even thought it." She whispered into his ear, and he turned his hurt eyes onto her, and for some reason they began to make her heart melt.

"Did you really think I would stoop that low? I mean, having you guys treat me that way wasn't a bundle of laughs, it made me feel evil and horrible about all I'd put you through, but I didn't come here to have an easy time, I came here to save you guys and Wyatt. I would never, ever, put you in danger like that." He said resentfully, the fact that she had even contemplated that he was capable of such a thing still twisting a knife into his heart.

Piper looked at his sad green eyes and wordlessly hugged him to her, running her hands through his hair like she would do with Wyatt. Chris, despite how hurt he was, closed his eyes at the contact, hearkening back to his childhood when he would sit beside her like this and watch tv, and how that whenever she would hug him to her, no matter how he felt, even if he felt really happy, she could always make him feel better...

_Chris had been outside playing with his brother on a sunny summer day, when he had fallen off the swing he had been sitting on. Cursing, he dragged himself home, his knee bleeding and running down the inside of his leg. He limped home, having let his brother go off with the rest of his friends while he limped home. Wyatt, ever the caring brother, had argued, wanting to make sure his brother got home alright, but Chris had refused, saying that as he was thirteen he was quite capable of getting home by himself, despite a gashed knee. As such, Chris limped home, not wanting to risk orbing in the middle of a bright, beautiful day when everyone was outside enjoying the sunshine. As he limped home, he thought worriedly about the cat, who had been missing for a few days now. Whisky hadn't come in when they had called him the other day, and even with their mom putting food outside the back garden, the cat hadn't come home. Chris was starting to worry that something had happened to the little guy and he had gotten lost somewhere. He missed Whisky, and wanted nothing more than to pet him again._

_As he came to the house, he grinned widely, seeing his mother sitting in the sun seat, tanning herself, with the cat happily sitting on her lap._

"_Hey sweetie, look who I found." Piper said cheerily, and Chris limped up the garden path and immediately started to pet the cat, who purred contentedly._

"_Hey Whisky, where you been?" Chris cooed to the cat as he tickled his ears._

_Whisky merely purred in response, so Chris looked to his mother for an answer._

"_I found him in the garage, he must have been sleeping in there for days. And I think he must have gotten one or two of the mice that were in there, because he only seemed a wee bit hungry." She theorised, and smiled as he son grinned and happily talked to the cat._

_Her smile faded a little when she saw that her little boy had hurt himself._

"_Chris, what happened?" she asked worriedly as she surveyed his knee._

"_It's nothing mom, I just wobbled a bit when I was on the swing and shot off." Chris said consolingly, trying to stop her worrying._

_Piper narrowed her eyes at him, sternly reprimanding him silently for not thinking it was important to her that he was injured. Chris saw the look and immediately used his secret weapon, flashing his soulful green eyes at her, and she sighed, as she knew full well she couldn't fight him when he used that look of his._

"_Oh alright, maybe it's relatively small in comparison to some of the stuff you two mischief makers get up to, but I still care." She said, smiling slightly._

_Chris grinned at her._

"_I know mom." He said, looking down at his knee and supposing he should do something about it._

"_Come on, let's get it fixed up, then you can go and keep an eye on your brother. Not that I don't trust him not to get into trouble but..." she tailed off, winking at Chris, who knew full well Wyatt had probably already done something he wasn't meant to._

_They went inside, Chris keeping hold of Whisky as they entered into the cool house, and he set the cat down in his bed while Piper got the antiseptic and the first aid kit. She spared a resentful glance upwards for Leo, who should be here to heal any problem either of their sons had, rather than just coming down when something was wrong with Wyatt. It had gotten to the point that he was ignoring her, and to be frank, it was pissing her off. She knew full well he was avoiding her because she was furious with him because of his most recent treatment of her youngest son, totally ignoring him the last time he had come down to see Wyatt, despite Wyatt warning him to talk to Chris beforehand. Cursing her ex, she went through and sat down on the sofa beside her son and dabbed at his cut._

_Chris winced as the antiseptic stung. Though he was more than capable of dealing with it himself, he knew she would make a better job of it, and he also knew that it was much better to let her mother him in these situations, as all it did was make her look hurt if he insisted on doing it himself, and he hated upsetting her. Sometimes she didn't want to believe that her two little boys were growing up, and allowing her these little guilty pleasures when she could look after them without feeling bad about infantilising them. Piper dabbed at the cut, and her soft, loving touch made the pain go away that much quicker. Who needed a dad who could heal when his mom could dispel all the pain anyway?_

"_There, all better." She announced happily._

"_Thanks mom." He said gratefully._

_Piper smiled at her son, and hugged him tightly, which he reciprocated. Other kids would probably complain about their mother hugging them when they were thirteen, but her boys didn't, Chris least of all. He always felt better after she hugged him, and he could already feel himself totally forgetting about the cut on his knee._

"_You're welcome." She whispered, and kissed his forehead as he got up._

"_Well I better go see what mess Wyatt has gotten himself into this time. Bye mom." He said, and stroked the cat on the way out._

_Piper smiled after her son. She loved him so much, and didn't even mind when him or his brother interrupted her relaxation, as no matter what had happened they could always make her feel better. Stroking Whisky, she headed back outside to catch up some more rays._

Chris felt himself get better as his mother hugged him. He wondered whether he should go through with his original plan, and the prospect of getting more of these hugs seemed like more than enough reason to tell her. But then, he thought of what she had thought about him, and his heart clammed up...not now, maybe later.

"I'm sorry Chris. I don't really think you would do that. And I know you would never sink that low, or do anything to hurt us." She said quietly into his ear, and his heart warmed to hear her say it.

"Thanks Piper." He said, then got up.

Piper looked at her Whitelighter, and she knew she had just added yet another powerful emotional wound to him, and she wanted nothing more than to convince him of how sorry she was that she had even entertained the notion that he would do that to him. But even then, her own feelings surprised her. Yes, she would want to apologise to someone if she upset them, but this, this was different, she felt a sort of need to apologise to him, and let him know she hadn't meant it.

"Chris..." she began, and he smiled shyly at her, and took her hand.

"It's...it's ok." He said, and orbed away, but despite what he said, she knew he was still hurt.

Piper looked resentfully upward, angry that Leo had made her hurt Chris with his issues. But why did Chris matter to her so much? And why did she matter so much to him?

And then, a thought entered her mind, so mad that it couldn't possibly be true. But...what if it was? Excited, Piper headed to get the notepad she had been doodling on earlier.

XX

A few days later, with only Phoebe and Paige having seen Chris as he was subtly not talking to Piper because of what she had said to him, the two of them were sitting in Paige's room, discussing their nephew. As in a few months he would have to be conceived, they were wondering how best how to go about it.

"Well why don't we just tell them?" Paige asked, sure that Piper would be delighted that Chris was her son.

"Because that would put pressure on them and may not make them able to do it." Phoebe said lightly.

"Well what about a love potion?" Paige asked.

"You think he wants to be conceived that way?" Phoebe asked sceptically.

"Well it would beat not being conceived at all surely? Whats the alternative? Aphrodisiacs?" Paige asked bemusedly.

It occurred to her that their nephew's reluctant choice was actually going to make it very difficult for them to enable him to be born, especially as Leo was away being an Elder all the time, and it appeared he only came down to make life difficult for their new nephew, much to their displeasure. They both knew that it was him who had caused Piper to accuse Chris of having enchanted them, and both were privately looking forward to telling Leo who he had really accused of hurting them. It was very vindictive, but considering Chris had done nothing but try to protect his family while he had gone off to play Elder, he deserved a break.

"No, that wont work, Piper would catch on and stop us. We need to think of something different." Phoebe said sadly, an unpleasant thought occurring to her.

"Well I don't hear you coming up with any ideas!" Paige grumbled, not giving up on her little nephew.

Phoebe looked down at the covers and picked at a stray thread. She didn't want to voice the thought that had entered her mind, but there had to be a reason why Leo and Piper, whose love had been strong enough to conquer everything the Elders had thrown at them, had not stayed together, despite everything that had happened. They still loved each other, but they had refused to acknowledge this and fix themselves. Chris' influence had hurt them certainly, but they had overcome worst. Perhaps...perhaps Chris had damaged his own existence by doing what he felt he had to do.

"Well...what if, by accelerating Piper and Leo's break up, Chris unintentionally stopped himself being born? What if...he just isn't meant to be? What if it was his destiny to warn us about Wyatt and what would happen to us, and thats it?" she asked uncertainly.

Paige looked at Phoebe in shock.

"What!? Oh no, you are not giving up! We have still got months. Just because its a daunting job doesn't mean we aren't going to try it for heaven's sake Phoebe! He's our nephew! We aren't just giving up on him like that! I don't believe its just his job to warn us about Wyatt, and neither do you! Do you?" Paige asked, not quite sure what her sister felt.

Phoebe looked at her sister sadly.

"Of course I don't. But you have to admit, there may be a chance." She said sadly.

Paige shook her head in shock. She knew Phoebe did have a point, but she wasn't going to admit it to her. And for that, she was glad, as a small movement in the corner of her eye made her turn to see her devastated looking nephew.

Phoebe followed her gaze and saw Chris look at her with a look of devastated grief, and he turned and walked away.

"Phoebe." Paige hissed as the two of them headed after him.

They caught up with him in the attic, and Paige immediately hugged him close to her and he wept gently into her shoulder. Paige shot a glare at Phoebe, who was looking at him in remorse. She hadn't expected him to be there and hear her, his own aunt, basically saying that there was a very good chance that he wouldn't be born at all. She stepped forward, and took Chris' cheek in her hand, turning his green watery, hurt eyes to face her.

"Chris, listen to me. It's not that I don't want you to be born. I want you to be born as much as anyone. I was just saying that its going to be difficult to make sure we get you feather, thats all." She said comfortingly as she looked at him.

Chris looked down at her sadly.

"Dont you want me to be born aunt Phoebe?" he asked softly, knowing full well that if she answered the way he was afraid she would she would never see him again.

"Of course I do Chris. What I was saying is that is going to be difficult to get you thats all. I love you feather." She said lovingly, cuddling him.

They hugged and Paige joined in, embracing her nephew. Since they had found out who he was, it had become apparent how much he really did love them, and he had become a lot more open with them, telling them stuff about himself and some limited details of what happened in the future, and also showing his emotions to them a lot more. Chris was glad that Prue was no longer the only person he could confide in now that his two aunts knew who he was.

Despite that, he still wanted to tell his mother who he really was, but because she had actually thought he was capable of enchanting his aunts for his own ends, he hadn't been talking to her. Phoebe and Paige had tried to get the two of them together, and he knew Piper wanted to talk to him, but the fact that his own mother had accused him of casting a spell on his aunts to remove their free will and make them love him rather than them deciding to do so due to other reasons had hurt. Mind you, so did hearing his aunt admitting that he might not be born...

"We will make sure you're born little angel, I promise." Paige said, stroking his hair gently.

"I love you." Chris whispered to both of them.

"We love you too sweetie." Phoebe soothed, happy that her nephew was still talking to her.

"I'm sorry aunt Phoebe, I shouldn't have gotten upset..." Chris said, but she shook her head forcefully.

"It was my fault honey. I'm sorry." She said, kissing his cheek, making him smile at her, and she instantly felt better, knowing that she hadn't alienated him like Piper had.

"Chris honey, when are you going to talk to Piper?" Paige asked hesitantly.

Chris looked at Paige sadly.

"Aunt Paige..." he began.

"Chris, you miss her, and I know you want to tell her that she's your mom. So, why don't you just talk to her, and tell her that at the same time?" Paige wheedled.

Chris looked downcast.

"Mom accused me of hurting you two. I could never hurt anyone in my family. I couldn't bring myself to hurt Wyatt even when he was trying to kill me. Having my own mom accuse me of deliberately endangering you guys just so I can have it a bit easier hurt. I will talk to her, just not yet, alright?" he said.

Paige opened her mouth to reply, but Phoebe shook her head slightly, and she let it go. She knew that because Piper meant so much to him, his own mother accusing him of deliberately doing something that could hurt his family hurt him considerably.

"She misses you too you know." Phoebe said lightly.

Chris looked at Phoebe furtively, his eyes showing hope and delight at this piece of news.

"Really?" he asked, figuring that if his mother missed him he could possibly talk to her soon and tell her what he had originally wanted.

"Yes." Phoebe said, smiling at him.

And that piece of news greatly improved his news. His mother missed him...meaning that she was in the right mindset for his little bombshell.

Chris was about to ask their opinion on Piper's mood when there was a glow from behind them, revealing Leo.

"Leo?" Paige asked as she and Phoebe stood beside each other, effectively forming a shield for Chris, who looked at them thankfully.

"Hey girls. Chris...I wanted to apologise for before." Leo said, looking down at his shoes.

The three of them gave them a shocked look, and he grinned inwardly. See, he could do the humble thing despite being an Elder.

"Really?" Paige asked, not quite believing it.

"Yeah. I was wrong...to try to punish you for that when I've done the same thing. And as Piper rightly pointed out, if it hadn't been for me, you probably wouldn't have had to do it anyway, so...I'm sorry." Leo said earnestly.

Chris looked at his father in shock. Not once in his life had Leo ever admitted that he had done wrong by Chris. And now here he was, apologising for the way he had treated him before, and he didn't even know he was his son. Chris looked at his father, an odd emotion going through his heart. It wasn't love, he knew that...you had to be loved by your father before you could love him in the first place, and that hadn't happened to Chris, his uncles and grandpa taking that place in his heart. And there was also the fact that his version of Leo had accused him of letting his mother die. As such he wasn't convinced he could bring himself to love any version of Leo, when the man clearly thought that Chris could willingly hurt members of his family. But there was still that strange emotion he was feeling. He was certainly happy that for the first time in his life his father had admitted he had done something wrong to him, but it wasn't just happiness he felt, so what was it?

"Um...thanks." Chris said, his aunts parting their defensive barrier to let him see his father properly.

There then stood an awkward silence for a few minutes, before Leo cleared his throat.

"Well, I must be off. But Chris...I am watching you, and if you do anything to hurt them I will stop you." Leo warned, and the awkwardness broke, as Chris glared at his father.

He knew Leo wouldn't be able to resist digging at him, and he glared, a spiteful response forming in his mind. He knew his aunts wouldn't like it much, but Leo just wouldn't leave him alone and it was getting on his last nerve that someone who had already messed up his mother and him in both timelines was trying to stop Chris preventing that in this timeline. Anger and hurt took over, as his frustration at his father always being absent in his own childhood, and now his father accusing him of trying to hurt his mother, his brother and his aunts filled his body.

"Why bother? You're never there for them normally." Chris sneered angrily, and orbed out, savouring the surprised look on Leo's face as he did so.

Leo looked in shock at where Chris had just vanished. The look on his face had been one of pure hatred, and also one of hurt. That was just odd. Perhaps Piper was right and Chris really didn't mean his family any harm, but there was things going on with that kid that just didn't add up, and that was dangerous. It could endanger Wyatt and Piper. And Leo meant what he had said...if Chris hurt them, intentionally or not, then he would stop him.

"Leo!" Phoebe yelled angrily.

She was more annoyed at him for upsetting Chris in the first place than she was with Chris for speaking to his father like that, but she supposed that Prue had often been rude to her own father before they had fixed their relationship.

"We've told you before Leo, leave Chris alone. We trust him, and that should be good enough for you." Paige said angrily.

Leo shook his head.

"He's up to something, he's putting all of you in danger!" he exclaimed, trying to make them see that Chris was a threat.

Phoebe shook his head forcefully.

"No he isn't Leo. And you used to trust us to make our own decisions and mistakes. That shouldn't have changed when you became an Elder. So, trust us with Chris. He isn't trying to hurt us, he's trying to save us. So back off and leave us and him alone." She said to him grimly, narrowing her eyes to show that she meant business.

Leo looked at Phoebe impassively and nodded grimly. The girls either actually believed that he wasn't a threat...or as Leo had originally thought, Chris had enchanted them. But...Phoebe and Paige wouldn't get passionate about him unless they felt he actually deserved such passion. Was he right to still persecute Chris? He had trusted the girls instincts for years and they had never once been wrong. But there was just something that didn't add up about Chris, and Leo was determined to prevent that from hurting his family. It was probably his own fault that he was thinking like this. If he had stayed down on earth like he had wanted to, Chris wouldn't have even been needed, and he could have kept an eye on him if the kid had stayed. So, did he trust his wife and her sisters, or did he do what he had to do to make sure that Chris couldn't threaten his family at all, to protect his son? Making a decision, he bade the irate girls goodbye and orbed up.

XX

Piper pondered the situation with Chris as she changed Wyatt. Over the last few days, in which she had to admit to herself she had missed him terribly because he hadn't been talking to her because of how she'd upset him, she had been accumulating evidence of who Chris really was. Piper looked at the notepad that she hadn't let out of her sight for days and wondered whether her findings were just random coincidence, or if her suspicions were right. In her heart she was terrified of the truth. If he was who she thought he was, she was both ecstatic and terrified at the same time, and didn't know how she would react when she confronted Chris. She certainly didn't want to hurt him anymore than she already had, regardless of his answer. And if she was wrong...well she would be quite upset about it actually.

Piper set Wyatt down in his cot, picked up the baby monitor and took a deep breath. It was time to find out if she was right.

XX

Leo looked at the Book guiltily, not wanting to do what he had done. But whatever Chris was up to, or hiding, was a threat to Wyatt. And Leo would do anything to protect his son.

He took one last guilty look at the Book and heard Piper coming, and orbed out. Chris wouldn't be a threat anymore after this. He seemed to care about Piper the most. As such, Piper turning on him should keep him away for good. Leo had a horrible guilty feeling in his gut that told him it was a bad idea, but he ignored it. Nothing was more important than protecting Wyatt. And if that meant turning Piper against Chris, he supposed he had to do it, regardless of how bad it felt. Chris wouldn't threaten them anymore.

XX

Piper entered the attic, her heart beating fast as trepidation of what she was about to do filled her. What would Chris say? And if she was right, what would cause him to have come back here? Worry filled her as she reached the book, intending to summon him witch to finalise her suspicions. But as she reached the Book, her gaze was drawn to the page it was opened at. It was open at the page on enchantments. And at the bottom was the pad Chris had numerous demon threats and theories written on. Piper picked it up, and found the enchantment spell scribbled in on the back page.

A powerful feeling of betrayal filled Piper, along with disgust and horror. He had lied to them, and all this time he had been acting against them, making them weaker and preying on their good natures. Piper was now convinced that she had been wrong all along, and remarkably, despite how she had felt before, it didn't bother her in the slightest. Anger and hatred coursed through her as she realised that their Whitelighter had been lying to them all along, had manipulated them and had endangered her family. He had enchanted her sisters, despite his incredibly good acting. He had taken advantage of them, and had lied to them from the start. The picture had just been his way in to get closer to them.

"Chris." She spat in rage, and her Whitelighter orbed in, looking hesitant.

Chris looked at his mother, her eyes narrowed in hatred. Something told him that now wouldn't be a good time to tell her the truth, despite how much he wanted to. So once again, he locked away the love he felt for her and assumed his impersonal persona.

"Yeah Piper?" he asked, wondering what could have made her look so mad.

And close to, Chris could see that she was mad enough to even look a little scary.

"You lied to me, to all of us." She growled.

Chris looked at her in bewilderment. He didn't have the faintest idea of what she was talking about, but unless his very worst fears had been realised, then she hadn't discovered who he was.

"Um Piper, what are you talking about?" he asked in confusion.

In response, Piper threw his notebook at him, hatred pouring from her usually warm brown eyes.

"Hey, how did that get here?" Chris asked, his confusion evident, though not at all liking the hate filled look his mother was sending him.

Piper however, thought it was all an act. After all he'd proved himself to be quite the skilled little actor, even being able to cry on command. Soap opera recruiters would love him.

"Dont act like you don't know. You've been lying to us all along, manipulating us...taking advantage of our guilt." She hissed, her anger still strong, but there was a little bit of hurt in her words too.

After all, they had opened up to him and tried to make things better for him to make up for how they had treated him before. And he had used that in order to enchant her sisters, endangering all of them.

"Piper, what...?" Chris asked, his voice hurt.

He didn't know what the hell she was on about but she seemed hurt.

"You know full well what I mean you manipulative little creep. I've seen the back page." She growled, hatred pouring from her.

Chris looked at it, in a very close imitation to his handwriting, an enchantment spell. Realisation hit him like a train, and he realised that Piper must think he had been lying to her and that he actually had enchanted his aunts. How the spell got there would be dealt with later, after he convinced her he hadn't done it.

"Piper, believe me, I didn't do this!" he exclaimed, trying to calm her down and make her see reason.

"Dont lie to me. You've done that enough. You put us all in danger, took advantage of us. We trusted you!" she yelled furiously.

Chris could feel tears welling in his eyes, but he looked at his mother defiantly.

"I haven't done anything! Piper, I haven't enchanted Phoebe and Paige! I couldn't!" he said desperately, trying to get his mother to believe him.

But his heart realised that it was a forlorn hope. Piper apparently had proof that he had been lying to them all along, and was now really going to town. His own mother had turned on him. One look at her eyes told him all he needed to know. He was so hurt that even his mind had shut up. His mother was turning against him, the person who mattered most to him in the entire cosmos, thought he was a manipulative little liar who had put her family in danger. And that fact, combined with the look of pure hatred she was giving him, broke his already fragile heart, and he let the tears flow. He looked at Piper, his depression and grief coming off him in waves.

Piper looked at him impassively, though a rapidly increasing piece of her heart was crying out to her that she should go over, apologise and hug him. But she stood her ground. He wouldn't hurt her family again.

"That'll get you a good job as an actor Chris, that acting talent of yours. But its not going to work this time." She said firmly, and Chris sniffed and looked down.

He wanted to say that it wasn't an act. But he couldn't muster the strength to even talk under his mother's hateful glare. He just stood there and let his heart get ripped in two and the tears flow down his face.

"I want you out of here. The only reason I'm not vanquishing you is because you helped save Wyatt. Get out, and I don't ever want to see you again. And if you ever come near me or my family again I will vanquish you." She said in a soft, deadly voice.

Chris looked up at his mother with bleary eyes, as she delivered her mortal blow. She didn't even want to see her own son, and was threatening to kill him. Chris couldn't take it anymore. He looked at Piper, and dropped his book to the floor, hurt rending every little bit of him.

"Fine. I'll go." He said, his voice choked with tears.

Piper looked at him, and something in her heart, the part that had grown to love him before she had discovered his betrayal yearned to reach out to him, apologise for treating him in such a way and cuddle him to her. But once again she ignored it and watched him coldly.

"Just...just do me one favour ok? Stay away from Leo on Wyatt's birthday." He said, his voice muffled by the tears, and with one last heartbroken look at her he orbed out of her life.

And then Piper let her own tears fall. She was wrong with her suspicions about Chris. And now that did hurt, and a large part of her was feeling incredibly guilty about what she had just done. And seeing how hurt he was, because no one was that good an actor, made her feel miserable.

Then, a horrible thought entered her mind. What if she'd been wrong? Now that she came to think of it, Chris wouldn't be stupid enough to leave his notebook here. Had she just made a terrible mistake? And if she had, and her original suspicions were right...Now that the anger was going, she could feel only hurt and guilt. What had she done?

XX

Phoebe entered in through the back door, setting the shopping on the table as Paige experimented with a new potion. As Phoebe slung her coat over the back of a chair, a terrible pain ripped through her heart, transmitting across her entire body. She gave a hurt gurgle and threw her hand against the table to support herself.

"Phoebe!" Paige cried in shock as she watched her sister struggle to stand.

"Chris...." Phoebe managed to squeeze out as she struggled to keep her composure.

"Oh no..." Paige whispered, supporting her sister as the two of them headed for the attic.

By the time they got up to the attic, Piper was standing with tears running down her face, and their heartbroken nephew was nowhere to be seen.

"Piper!" Paige exclaimed, seeing that she was upset.

Piper took steadying breaths and turned to look at her sisters.

"I think...I think I've done something terrible. But I was just so angry..." she tried to say, tears choking her voice.

"Piper what happened?" Paige asked, as Phoebe had closed her eyes to deal with Piper's pain.

"Chris...I found out something, it made it seem like he'd been lying to us all along, and had been manipulating us, and had enchanted you...I was so angry..." she moaned, holding her arms around herself.

Because the more she thought about it, the last look Chris had given her had been one of a broken heart, one broken beyond all repair. And that was making her think that she had perhaps been right before she had gotten so angry, for him to give her a look like that. One of total rejection and abandonment by someone he loved...and Piper had a horrid feeling she was right.

Paige looked anxiously at Phoebe, who had felt Chris' pain, realised something very bad had happened in here, perhaps bad enough to shatter Chris' strong love for his mother, as she had felt so much pain from her nephew.

"Piper...what did you do?" Phoebe asked urgently, wondering what she could have said to cause her nephew so much pain.

"I...I accused him of lying to us all along, that he'd betrayed us...and that I didn't want to see him again. And...that if he ever came back, I would vanquish him." She whispered sadly.

Phoebe looked at Piper in shock, realising why Chris had been so hurt. His own mother had basically accused him of trying to hurt his family, which he couldn't do even if he wanted to, and had then said that she didn't want to see him again. This was very bad.

"Right, we need to find him. But Piper, what made you think he'd enchanted us? He couldn't hurt us, and we told you he was on our side! Why would you think he isn't?" Paige asked furiously.

Piper nodded to the book that Chris had dropped before he left, guilt and despair threatening to consume her as her grief over what she had done caught up to her. She had been blinded by rage, so willing to believe the worst of the Whitelighter who she had not so long ago defended to Leo, willing to believe that the boy who professed to do nothing other than care for them would deliberately hurt or endanger them. She wanted to find him, to see if there was any way of salvaging whatever relationship she had with him. And if she was right before she had gone off at him...it didn't bear thinking about.

Paige picked up the book, worry filling her for her nephew. The way Phoebe had felt his pain...the poor kid was obviously a state. She could also see that Piper was a state, guilt and grief over what she had done were obviously gnawing at her. But that wouldn't save the love Chris had had for his mother. Paige understood why her sister had been so angry, especially if it seemed like he'd been lying and hurting them all along. But what was her justification?

She flipped through the book, and found the so called proof of Chris' treachery. Paige supposed that in Piper's situation she'd have gone insane as well. But close to, while the writing the enchantment spell was a lot like Chris', it was a tiny bit different. Enough so that if you were really looking for it, you'd spot, but at first glances it would tell you Chris had used the enchantment spell.

"It's not entirely your fault Piper. It's a very close imitation of his writing, but isn't actually his." Paige said quietly, and Piper wailed.

"But, why would a demon want to frame Chris? It doesn't make any sense." Phoebe said as she tried to calm their sister down.

Paige then looked at the writing more closely, and hissed like an angry cat.

"It does if we're not looking for a demon." She said angrily, her warm eyes narrowed in fury.

Phoebe and Piper looked at her in incomprehension, until Phoebe finally caught up to her sisters train of thought.

"Leo?" she asked, aghast, not wanting to believe that her brother could turn Piper against her son.

"Leo framed Chris?" Piper asked, hardly daring to believe it.

"He kept saying Chris was a threat, and he didn't believe us when we told him he wasn't. If we'd told him..." Paige moaned.

Phoebe glowered at her sister, but Piper wasn't paying attention. She was clutching onto the book stand, her eyes closed.

"He turned me against him, he framed him...I told him I never wanted to see him again, and he looked so...broken....more broken even than when I told him I would kill if he dared come back, it was like...that was what hurt him the most." Piper sobbed.

Phoebe looked at Paige, silently debating whether they should tell Piper the real reason Chris looked so broken. But if they told her that she had just declared that she hated her own son, had just told him that she never wanted to see him again and threatened to kill him, their sister wouldn't be able to fix things with their nephew.

"When is Chris' birthday?" she asked suddenly, interrupting her sisters from their silent conversation.

They looked at each other in confusion, not seeing how waiting until Chris' birthday would fix this.

"Piper I don't think..." Paige began, but Piper cut her off with a tear filled glare.

"Just answer the damn question. When is his birthday?" she demanded.

"November." Phoebe said, totally bamboozled as to why this was important in Piper's eyes.

And then Piper went quiet, her eyes closed, like she was figuring something out. And then she let out another sob.

"He is, isn't he?" she asked, her voice like shattered glass, as though their answer would crush her beyond repair.

"Piper, what's wrong?" Phoebe demanded, wondering what she could have just thought of to make her act like this.

"When he left, he told me to stay away from Leo on Wyatt's birthday. Which is in February. Which is...nine months before November. He's my son, isn't he?" Piper asked, now convinced that her earlier suspicions had been right, and an immense feeling of self loathing rose in her, making her feel ill.

She had just thrown out her own son, basically told him she hated him, and that she hadn't wanted to see him again, before threatening to kill him. All she needed was for her sisters to confirm it.

Phoebe looked at Paige, who shrugged sadly.

"Yes." Phoebe said quietly, and Piper wailed in despair.

"My own son...I did that to my own son...do you know what he said to me? He told me to stay away from Leo on Wyatt's birthday. Which would be when he was conceived. I made my own son not even want to be born." She said in a broken voice, her fear of never being able to find her son consuming her with a black shroud of grief.

Paige and Phoebe looked at their sister in shock. Chris had said that? Piper had hurt him so badly he didn't even want to be born, she had totally shattered the boy. And now they had to find him and put the family back together.

"We need to find him." Piper said quietly.

"I might know where he is. He wont come if he's in a state, so we'll have to go to him." Paige said, and Piper nodded.

"Fine. I'll go and get Wyatt, then we can go get my son. And then...then I'll kill my husband." She said, fire igniting in her eyes as she did so and she swept imperiously from the attic, her sisters following close behind.

XX

Prue sat down beside Chris, and pulled him into a comforting embrace as he sobbed his heart out into her shoulder. Prue didn't know what to say. She, Grams and Patty had been enjoying a game of dominoes when Grams had become distracted by Leo going furtively around the house. They had watched as Piper had found what Leo had framed Chris for, and had watched as all hell had broken loose. They had watched as Chris had orbed away, and his pain was so keen the three of them could feel it from their lofty perch which as they were dead was a very worrying situation.

Prue rocked her nephew gently as he cried, not knowing what to say that could possibly begin to fix this. She had been watching Piper, and she knew it had hurt her to be that way with Chris, but Leo's actions had convinced her that Chris was a threat, and she had reacted the way she would have in order to protect her family. The problem was the one she felt she was defending them from was family, and one who loved his mother more than anything. And now, in the aftermath of his own mother wrongly accusing him, telling him she never wanted to see him again and threatening to kill him if he ever came back, she had to deal with her broken hearted nephew, who had been broken by his mother's attack on him, and try and get him back together.

But that involved actually figuring out something that she could say.

"I...I told you so." Chris sobbed, and Prue felt a fresh rush of pain for him, and rocked him.

She couldn't imagine how he must feel. His own mother had just accused him of being out to hurt his family, which couldn't be further from the truth, had thrown him out and had threatened to kill him, and she could see from her lofty vantage point the hatred that had been stemming from Piper's eyes, and enduring that sort of glare from his mother had broken all measure of hope and resistance in him. He loved Piper more than anything, and she had destroyed him with her treatment of him.

"Chris, Piper..." she began, but Chris shook his head sadly.

"It's my own fault. I should know by now that me loving anyone just gets me hurt. Either they turn away from me or get themselves killed." He said mournfully, his green eyes flooded with tears which strolled down his cheeks and landed on the white marble floor below him.

"Chris you don't believe that..." Prue said, but Chris glared up at the ceiling with his watery eyes.

"Why not? My big brother turns evil, my mom and my aunts get killed, my dads never there, my grandpa dies, my fiancée is murdered by my brother, and when I come back here my aunts and mom barely tolerate me, and now my mom hates me. I was right all along. And I suppose its my own fault for having someone I love that much, it just makes it worse when she turns on me or abandons me." He said resentfully.

"Chris, Piper was lied to, she was tricked..." Prue began.

While for the most part she was loathe to give Chris more reasons to hate Leo, she felt that his already damaged relationship with Chris was secondary to Chris' relationship with his mother, who he loved more than anything. And if there was anything she could do to try and save that relationship, then she had to try and do it, before the great love Chris possessed for Piper disappeared forever.

Chris looked at her, his hurt eyes looking at her.

"It doesn't matter. My version of mom would never do that to me." He said quietly and turned his back to her, and for the first time, Prue felt true despair.

Chris sat looking at the wall, his heart disintegrating. He'd endured their hostility before and had barely coped with it. But now, framed or not, Piper believed the worst of him and never wanted to see him again. He could feel the strong love for her that he used to have burning within him disappearing, along with all the hope that he had had when he had first arrived from the future, the hope that he would be able to create a better future. And along with that, he felt his reason for being there was gone too. He had told Piper not to conceive him, and that thought didn't scare him nearly as much as it should have done. Regardless, he would go on trying to protect Wyatt. He would stay away from his mother, and most likely from his aunts so Piper didn't have an excuse to hunt him down. He would protect Wyatt from afar and try to make sure that he didn't go evil, so that at least his brother could grow up with the loving mother they had both had.

But that purpose didn't stop him being miserable. The horrible feeling inside him, of being rejected by the one thing he loved most in the entire world, loved even more than his big brother, would not go away. In fact it was getting worse as his mind went over what had happened in the attic with his mother. She had said he had been lying to them all along. She had accused him of trying to hurt his own family. She had told him she had never wanted to see him again. And she had threatened to kill him. His mother, the brightest thing in his world, the one who had promised always to be there for him had now failed that twice. The first time, she had been taken from him by a demon. And now, because of his own distance, which he had meant to use to protect himself, his own actions had turned her against him. He had had to be secretive and lie a lot even though it was against his nature to do so in order to try and save Wyatt, and that had lead to the one he loved most easily being convinced that he was out to hurt her and her son. And that was how she had so easily believed the set up. The fact that she hadn't even stopped to consider the possibility that he had been framed hurt even more. True, he had given her no reason to, but that shouldn't have mattered. Her reaction just made him think that all along she had been privately hoping she could get rid of his interference in their lives and return things to the way they had been before he'd arrived. And now she had what she wanted.

He brought his legs up to his chest and wrapped his arms around them, resting his chin on his knee, ignoring Prue as his tears continued to fall. His mother had promised to always be there for him, and once again it was his actions that had taken her from him. He had no one to blame but himself. But that didn't make it any easier. He had lost his mother again, the only one he had ever needed...

_Chris sat looking at the clock on the wall. It was Father's Day, and his father had failed to show up yet again. His grandpa, uncle Coop and uncle Henry had all thanked him for considering them when he had been preparing for father's day. He had written the card to Leo as usual, and as usual his father hadn't been there to get it. He had heard his mom and grandpa talking and she had said she was glad that the three of them were there for him whereas his father wasn't._

_But that didn't make it any easier. Yes, his uncles and grandpa were great, but he still didn't have a father. Despite Chris labouring for years, he still did not have a father, someone who could love him in ways his mother, the perfect mother in every way, could not. There were just some things that he couldn't talk about with her, and he knew as he grew up it would only get worse, and his brother would tease him if he tried to talk about that sort of thing with him, and it shouldn't have to fall to his uncles or grandpa to do it. He wanted a father._

_He was looking up at the clock and gave a sigh, and looked at the card he had in his hands, addressed to his dad from him only. Maybe if he had let Wyatt do it he might have come to get it. Leo obviously didn't care about his second son and that hurt him a lot. Had he done something bad to make his dad hate him? Was it his fault him and his mother had split up?_

_As these thoughts came into his heads, Chris struggled to force down tears. Was it his own fault he didn't have a dad? He started to sniffle, and threw the card onto the floor as he pulled his legs up to his chest and cried onto them._

_Wyatt came down the stairs, and looked at his crying little brother, and anger at his father pulsed through him. Every year he failed to show, and every year he made his little brother feel so bad that he normally ended up crying. And anyone who made his little brother cry deserved to suffer. _

_Wyatt went over and hugged his little brother to him and Chris sniffed as he laid his head against his shoulder and cried. _

"_What's up bro?" Wyatt asked gently._

"_It's my own fault. It's my own fault we don't have a dad." He cried sadly, and the pain in his voice made Wyatt consider trying to orb up to the heavens himself and drag his dad down here, and he would have done it if he could orb that far. _

"_No, no it isn't. Never think that." Wyatt said fiercely, but Chris was still crying._

_Kissing his ten year old brother's head, he slid out from under him and scuttled through to the kitchen, where Piper was attempting to prise off all the ice that had formed around the freezer door, welding it shut._

"_We need a new fecking freezer..." she grunted as she tried valiantly to open the door._

_She struggled to no avail, and growled irritably, and raised her hands._

"_No mom!" Wyatt scolded, and she turned around to look at Wyatt sheepishly._

"_You and me will just pretend that you didn't see me about to lose my rag and use my powers on the door ok?" she asked hopefully, and upon seeing that he didn't even look triumphant that he had caught her doing something she shouldn't be, she immediately frowned._

"_What's wrong sweetie?" she asked in concern._

_Wyatt looked sad._

"_Chris. It's like he's given up, I've never him so down." He said miserably._

_Piper growled, her predatory maternal instincts instantly telling her what had upset her little boy._

"_Your father?" she growled menacingly._

_Wyatt nodded, his own eyes hardening in dislike at mention of his name. Wyatt didn't like anyone upsetting Chris any more than she did. She snarled, throwing a hate filled glare upward. He had messed with Chris long enough._

"_If you see your father, keep him here until I kill him." She snarled as she headed to Chris, but Wyatt followed, knowing full well Leo wouldn't come down if he knew Piper was on the warpath._

_Piper sat down beside Chris and pulled him to her, cradling his little body as she rocked him gently, cooing in his ear._

"_Shh. It's ok peanut." She whispered to him._

"_It's my fault isn't it? That you and dad aren't together? That I don't have a dad?" he asked softly, the pain in his voice evident._

_Piper spared a bitter glare upwards. Her little boy was now thinking it was his fault that she and him had broken up, when nothing could be further from the truth. She was going to kill Leo when she next saw him._

"_No. Never ever think that. The only person whose fault it is that you don't have a dad is your dad. He would rather sit up there on his lofty perch than get to know you and Wyatt, that's his problem. You've nothing to feel bad over ok? This is not your fault, it's his, and his alone, ok?" she asked quietly, and Chris looked at her with his big green watery eyes and nodded slowly._

"_And besides...I'll love you enough to make up for your useless father not being around ok? I'll love you both as two parents would." She promised and gathered her boys to her and hugged them fiercely. _

"_And I'll love you enough to make up for it as well." Wyatt promised his little brother as the family cuddled together, and Chris knew that as long as he had his mom and his brother nothing could hurt him._

He had since lost that illusion. His mother had been taken from him twice, and it was his brother he was trying to stop by coming back here. But all it was doing was causing him more hurt. It was bad enough watching your family being taken from you by one of the ones you loved the most, but it was even worse when because of him you had to repeat the entire experience.

"Chris..." Prue said gently, coming up behind her still crying nephew.

Then Chris felt a massive threat, and his broken heart ceased to be important.

"Mom..." he whispered and orbed to the manor.

XX

Down in the underworld, a demonic seer by the name of Theskis smiled gleefully. After six years of watching the Charmed Ones for when they were at their most vulnerable, the time had finally come, and he could finally make his move and turn the Book of Shadows, and by extension, the Charmed Ones, evil. They would then become his supporters as he took over the underworld, and the presence of the Twice-Blessed Child who would be turned due to his exposure to his evil mother would ensure that he would never be challenged by anyone within the underworld after his takeover. His time had come.

"Now is the time Charmed Ones, now...you will make me the Source." He said evilly, grinning as he fetched his spell book.

The guilt Piper was feeling for treating her future son in such a way would be his way in, and he would use that guilt, and her sisters worry, in order to turn the book, and make them the basis of his support.

"My time has come!" he crowed and shimmered to the manor.

XX

Piper looked out of the window worriedly at she tucked Wyatt in. She had to go and find her son, bring him back to her and try to fix this, fix them, before things got any worse. Terrible guilt was pounding through her, making her feel sick with herself. She had told her own son that she would kill him if he ever threatened them again. Not only was he completely innocent, he had been framed by his father, and according to what Phoebe and Paige had been telling her, he had just been grievously hurt by the one who mattered most to him in the entire world. She had decided that she would use a spell to take her to Chris alone, not wanting her sisters to back her up. This she had to do alone if she was to have any chance of fixing things with her son. And she would fix them, of that she was sure. She would go to the ends of the earth and beyond if thats what it took in order to fix their relationship.

Steeling herself, she picked up the baby monitor and headed downstairs to where Phoebe and Paige where.

XX

Theskis smiled gloatingly as he beheld the Book. He was so close...

"_Ego voco crimen ut vendo evus_!" he said, and black energy filtered into the room from the floors below, coalescing around his hands, and he directed it at the book, and the triquertra on the front then turned black.

It was done. Now all he had to do was wait for it to take effect. As such he headed to the corner and sat down, awaiting his new followers with anticipation.

XX

Piper arrived downstairs, where her sisters had written a spell that would take her to Chris.

"Is it ready?" she asked, eager to find her absent son.

"I reckon so. All you need to do is say it." Phoebe said, thoroughly hoping that her nephew would listen to his mother, despite how hurt he was.

"Good." Piper said, her heart pounding.

For the first time she was actually going to see Chris when she knew he was her son, rather than just suspecting. And she was going to have to try and heal the terrible emotional wounds she had inflicted on her little boy.

As she reached for the spell, something in them changed, and she lowered her hand.

"What were we doing again?" she asked in confusion.

"You were going to go and see Chris, to beat him up for being so whiny." Phoebe supplied, her eyes black and her voice sneering.

"Why don't we just bring him here and teach him a lesson?" Paige asked, her own voice deep and evil sounding.

"Hmm, thats right..." Piper said, and she followed her sisters up stairs, but there was something inside her that was telling her that this was very very wrong.

XX

Chris orbed into Wyatt's room, and saw with relief that his big brother was still safe. If it turned out to be his mother and aunts who had corrupted him he didn't think he could stand it. As he'd said before he couldn't hurt any of his family, even if he had to. But he could protect his little brother.

"Leo." He said, gesturing at Wyatt and he orbed his brother up to his father, out of harm's way.

He then dashed up the stairs, and was relieved to find the Book still intact. But as he got closer, he saw that his family book had begun to turn, its pages going dark and the good spells becoming replaced with bad ones.

"Oh great." He hissed.

"Hey, what are you doing here!?" a voice asked, and Chris burled around, ready to defend himself.

Chris burled around to see a demon he hadn't expected to see anywhere in the past.

"What, Theskis? Oh come on you have to be kidding me!" he moaned.

Theskis was an advisor to Wyatt in the future, acting as one of his seers. But as Theskis was male and wasn't that accurate, Wyatt preferred to rely on Vaseera, a beautiful female seer who used to be Wyatt's girlfriend and had been enslaved upon his turn to darkness.

"What, you know me?" Theskis asked curiously, figuring that if Piper's future son knew him then he must succeed in his plan.

"Yeah sadly. What have you done you idiot?" Chris asked.

As demons went Theskis was relatively tame, especially as the spells he could use to defend himself were fairly long winded, enabling anyone attacking him to get at least three shots in before he could do utilise one. And if he was the reason the book had turned black, he knew vanquishing him wouldn't do a lot of good. They may be long winded but his spells were good.

"You should show more respect boy. I have taken what is my birthright, and have turned your precious mother and her sisters evil!" he crowed triumphantly.

"How!?" Chris demanded, fed up of waiting for this lame demon to reveal the rest of his plan.

"By using your mother's guilt to corrupt the book." He said smugly.

"Typical megalomaniac villain, you can never resist telling people how clever you've been. Tough luck, I'm going to stop you, regardless of future consequences." Chris promised, and conjured a ball of telekinesis and lightning which he threw right into Theskis' chest.

Theskis gave Chris a surprised look and screamed, before flames consumed him and he was vanquished.

"Asshole." He grumbled and headed to the book, which shut as he tried to touch it.

Chris looked at the book worriedly. For a start, his appearance must have meant that Theskis saw an opportunity not present in his own timeline, especially if he had his mothers guilt over him to turn the book. He wasn't very powerful, and was just a second rate demon trying to make a name for himself, and had had to ally himself to Wyatt in order to get any form of serious power in the future. But he was good at spells, meaning that the only way he could turn the book back was to make his mom and his aunts realise that they had been turned. He gulped, afraid to face them, his mother in particular. But he had no choice, otherwise they would be the ones who corrupted his big brother. And he wouldn't be able to live with that.

"Chris." Piper said, her usually warm voice replaced by a deep evil one.

Chris took a deep breath and turned to face his family reluctantly. He had to turn them back. Or die trying.

XX

Sandra, who was doing the yearly inventory, picked up the next thing to be catalogued from her pile without even looking up as she did so. All she could tell that it was heavy, so by all rights it had to be one of the old urns they kept around for no apparent reason. She stamped down, and to her great surprise it gave a startled yelp, making her look up and she nearly fell off her chair in shock as Wyatt was glaring at her ruefully.

"Leo!" Sandra yelled.

Leo came down, and his eyes immediately narrowed in concern as he saw his son sitting on the desk, with a large stamp on him saying Approved.

"Wyatt, what are you doing here buddy?" he asked in concern picking his son up and rocking him.

"I would like to know too, and also why he was in the pile to be stockpiled." Sandra said as she got to her feet, dusting off her robes.

Leo looked at her. There was no way Wyatt could have orbed here himself, and if she'd wanted him up here Piper would have asked him to collect him. So the only way he could have gotten here was if Chris had sent him here...but why would he do that, if he was trying to hurt Wyatt? Unless...

Dread and guilt were flooding through Leo as a thought crossed his mind. What if he had been wrong not to trust Chris? What if Chris was in fact on their side, as he had told them all along? What if Phoebe and Paige had been right when they had told him to back off?

"Is there anything happening in the manor?" he demanded urgently.

Aramis, the eccentric old man was on seeing duty today.

"Lets have a look shall we?" he wheezed and peered down, and looked worried.

"Oh dear, that isn't good." He said sadly.

"What?" Leo asked urgently, worry for Piper filling him.

"The book has somehow been turned evil. The sisters are standing off against Chris. It looks like hes trying to stop them get any more evil by getting in their way. That's awfully brave. Or awfully foolish, depending on your viewpoint." He summed up, and Leo blanched.

The book had been turned evil, turning the girls again as well. And Chris, despite everything they had all put him through, was still trying to save them all. In that moment, Leo knew he had made a terrible mistake and would most likely spend a very long time trying to make it up to Chris. But if he didn't get down there quickly, Piper might blow him up as her judgment was affected, and as he had lived through that himself, he didn't want their young Whitelighter subjected to that.

"Im going down there. Get that stamp cleaned off of Wyatt!" Leo ordered as he orbed down.

Sandra looked at Wyatt and sighed.

"Why's it always me who gets the messy jobs?" she sighed and headed to get a cloth.

XX

Chris looked at his mom and his two aunts, their eyes black and menacing as they approached him.

"What are you doing here?" Paige sneered angrily, raising her hand as if to orb something at him.

Chris looked at his aunt stonily, refusing to be moved even as they advanced slowly towards him, looking very dangerous and scary.

"I'm here to save you. Just like always." He said quietly.

"Get out of the way of the book." Piper ordered calmly, her evil voice ten times more terrible than her angry one.

"No." Chris said, shaking his head, not drawing his eyes from his mother's face.

"Chris, move." She barked evilly.

"No. I'm not going to let you touch the book. You three aren't evil." He said, his voice tearing up, as fear that he was either going to have to try and fight off his family, or fear that they would attack him, started to fill his heart.

"You know, the good lark just gets you down. Get out of the way." Phoebe told him, but he held firm, firmly shaking his head.

"No, I wont do it. If you want to get to the book, you have to go through me." He said, his voice only quivering slightly.

"Chris...I don't want to hurt you for some reason. Just get out of the way then you can go and do whatever you came here to do." Piper said, but he shook his head once more, locking gazes with Piper.

"No. I wont let you get to the book. I wont let you become more evil." He said, blocking the book entirely from their view.

Paige took a step forward so Chris flicked the stand backward, sending the darkened book skiting into a corner.

"Chris, it's our book. We deserve to have it. And if we do, we might actually help you with whatever you came here to do. Stop getting in the way." She spat angrily, and made a stride forward.

Chris raised his hand, hoping with all of his heart that he wouldn't have to use his powers against his aunt. Paige recoiled slightly, backing off a fraction, he rown hand starting to raise while her sisters watched.

"You wont hurt me Paige. You know the truth. You don't have a mean bone in your body. Remember what I called you? The most protective aunt ever. Dont make me change my mind about that. Reject the evil, I know you can." He pleaded softly, tears swimming in his eyes.

Paige raised her hand, and narrowed her black eyes, and Chris turned his head away from the blow that was most likely about to come. But then something changed in her and her eyes and voice went back to normal.

"Chris honey..." she said in shock, and Chris breathed a sigh of relief.

"I knew you could do it." He said, then turned to look back at Phoebe and Piper.

"Chris back away!" Paige told him but he shook his head.

"No. I wont let them become the thing that turns Wyatt evil." He said grimly, standing firm despite the hate filled glares his mom and aunt were still throwing in his direction.

"Piper, Phoebe, you know who he is, don't..." she pleaded.

"Shut up. We'll fix you in a minute sis don't worry." Piper promised and she and Phoebe continued to advance on Chris, who was still blocking their path to the book, and was looking sad and worried, but determined.

"Chris..." Paige said, but he just shook his head at her.

There was then a glow, revealing Leo.

"Piper don't!" he called, reaching his hand out to his wife.

Piper casually raised a hand and blew him apart. Swearing as he reformed, he moved closer to her.

"Piper, I was wrong. Chris isn't evil, he's trying to protect all of us, he always was. Dont do it." He told her.

Piper just shot him a disdainful glare and continued to advance on Chris with Phoebe. Leo looked at Chris worriedly, who nodded slightly in thanks, but he still glared at him resentfully. Paige pulled Leo back then smacked him hard in the face, sending him sprawling to the ground.

"Ow!" he protested.

"It's your fault we're in this mess to begin with." She growled, her eyes narrowed in fury.

"Paige what?"

"If Chris survives I'll tell you later." She hissed, and moved towards her sisters, but Phoebe kicked her backward and she collapsed to the floor, cursing.

"Why does she always pick on me?" she moaned.

Chris looked at his mother and aunt, and he realised he was being backed into the corner. And eventually his mother's patience would run out. He turned to Phoebe.

"Phoebe, you cant hurt me. You are not an evil person. Look at everything you've been through. You wont turn evil again. You rejected it once, and you wont go back there. You're stronger than that, I know you are. Dont do it aunt Phoebe. Your compassion always made you different. Remember? You're my caring aunt? Dont change that now." Chris whispered beseeching her to remember herself.

"Aunt Phoebe?" Leo asked as he helped Paige to her feet, despite her slap still stinging.

"Yeah." Paige said sarcastically, still furious with him.

Phoebe's eyes then returned to their normal state and Chris looked straight at his mother.

"Chris no!" Phoebe yelled, reaching her hand out for her nephew.

He shook his head and looked at his mother, whose eyes were still black.

He looked at her, the one person he loved most in the entire world. And despite everything she had said to him, he still loved her. Yes, there were scars on his heart that she had inflicted, but she was his mom, his light. And he wouldn't let her stay evil. Even if it cost him his life. His love for her was still there, despite being severely damaged by her verbal assault on him earlier. But she was still his mom.

"Fine. I don't need them anyway." She growled and stalked forward, her hands raised to blast him.

"Chris!" Phoebe cried.

"Aunt Phoebe? That means he's..." Leo said in realisation, and a terrible feeling of revulsion spread through him as he realised who he had framed, and exactly who he had turned Piper against.

"Yeah. The kid you just got Piper to tell she hated, thats your son." Paige said savagely, ready to spring on her sister if it would protect her nephew.

Leo was struck dumb, but they had more immediate worries.

"The demon said he used your guilt as a portal to turn the book evil. That makes me think you know who I am." Chris said, tears running down his face as his mother approached him, evil seeping off her.

Piper remained silent and just glared at him as she advanced, and Chris was longing just for her eyes to go back to brown, even if they might be filled with hate.

"You always were the brightest thing in the world, the strongest force of good there was. You aren't evil. You're the best thing good has ever had and you always will be. You know who I am. Thats why the book turned, using your guilt as a portal. You wont hurt me. You can't hurt me anymore than you already have mommy." He said, hoping to shock her back to her senses, but finding himself actually saying mommy rather than just mom, to try and show her how much she meant to him.

Piper's hands were still raised, as if she meant to blast her son.

"You wont hurt me anymore mommy. Otherwise you'll be going back on the promise you made. That you would never physically hurt me. Or do you not care about that promise that you made to your little boy? Dont you care mommy?" he asked, his tears still running down his cheeks as he wished his mother would turn back to his mother, his mom, his Piper, not this evil one. He would even consent to have the one that hated him back if it meant he wouldn't have to see those terrible black eyes.

Piper slowed slightly, but her hands were still raised, and the others were watching the exchange with bated breath, ready to act no matter what happened next.

Chris looked imploringly at her, using his secret weapon, flashing his green tear filled eyes at her trustingly, and hoping to hell he wasn't making a mistake. Piper stopped short and she was starting to waver as her little boy looked at her, trusting her not to hurt him anymore.

"Dont you love me mommy?" he asked softly, tears running down from those big, green, soulful, trusting eyes.

And at last, her eyes returned to their usual warm colour and for the first time since he had arrived they were full of love when she looked at him. She didn't lower her arms but instead took a step forward and wrapped her hands around him, bringing him in close into a hug filled with so much love he couldn't talk.

"Of course I do." Piper said, tears in her own voice as she cuddled her son, who had just risked his life to keep them good, stroking his hair as she did so.

The other three finally let out the breaths they hadn't realised they had been holding as Piper rocked her son lovingly, cradling him in her arms and cooing in his ear.

"Whoa, that was too close." Paige said, breathing heavily.

"Agreed. Can that be all the drama for like, the next six months?" Phoebe asked.

Leo looked at the kid Piper was cradling in her arms in shock.

"He's my son..." he said in shock.

Paige looked at him, her anger evaporating now that they were all out of danger.

"Yeah. He is." She said simply.

They all went to where Piper was still embracing Chris.

"Oh sweetheart, if I had known, I would never, ever have said that stuff to you...I'm so so sorry, I was tricked, I was so angry, I'm so sorry...how will you ever forgive me...?" she cried as she held him.

"Mom..." Chris protested as his own tears fell.

"What...what are you crying for?" she asked in confusion.

"Because you're crying, it always sets me off. Oh mom, I don't care, it's my own fault..." he said, his voice unsteady.

"No, never believe that. Oh baby I'm so sorry...shhh..." she said and she just rocked her son.

"I love you mom." Chris said, making Piper's heart feel a thousand times bigger, as her little boy told her he still loved her, despite what she had done to him.

"But..." she said quietly.

"Because a very wise witch once told me never to bear grudges. I always thought she was a little hypocritical but still, the lessons the same." He said, smiling slightly through his tears.

Piper clucked her tongue as she smiled a little.

"I love you little one. And I'm so sorry for what I did to you."

"Mom..." he moaned, now that he had her back, just wanting to forget the entire thing.

"Hey feather." Phoebe said as he embraced him too.

"I knew you wouldn't want to go evil again." He said happily as he hugged his aunt.

"Thank you for believing in me." She whispered as Paige took him off her and hugged him fiercely.

"I'm sorry angel. I was going to throw something at you..." she said, wincing as she did so.

"Ah you would have missed, your aim always did suck." He said teasingly, his voice returning to normal slightly.

"Cheeky sod. Thank you for saving us." She said quietly.

"You're welcome." He said, relieved that his family was back together.

Piper turned to look at Leo and glared at him, and he didn't even say anything he just hung his head.

"Go on I deserve it, a lot." He admitted, and she raised her hands for manipulating her in the way he had done, even if his intentions had been to protect them.

But then she felt two hands grasp her wrists and force her hands down.

"What did I just say?" Chris asked.

"That the very wise witch was hypocritical." She grumbled, but he just looked at her and she lowered her hands.

Leo walked up to Chris and took a hold of his hands, and Chris looked at it as if he hadn't never seen such a thing before, which they supposed from his father, he probably hadn't.

"Chris...I am so so so sorry. If I had known I would have never have done any of that stuff to you. I'm sorry believe you, I'm sorry I made things so difficult for you when all along you were only trying to save your big brother. I'm sorry for framing you, turning your mom against you, for everything...and...if you could find it in you to give me a chance, even though you have no reason to...I'd like to try and be a proper father to you." Leo said, his own eyes filling with tears.

Chris looked at the man who had been absent all his life, the man he had so wanted to be there for him, in the same way he had been there for Wyatt. But he was also the man who had caused all of this, who had turned his mom against him. So did he punish him for that, or did he be human and give him a chance, and try and give both himself and his little self the father he so desperately wanted?

And he nodded, and Leo's grin lit up the entire room and for the first time in his life, Chris received a hug from his father. And it felt good, and Chris hugged his father back.

There was then a shimmering glow and Chris broke off from his father to see a stern Prue, fingernail marks all over her face, glaring pointedly at all of them and tapping her foot with her hands on her hips.

"Prue!?" Piper asked incredulously, not quite knowing what her sister was doing there.

Chris shrugged at his aunt.

"What? It worked the way you wanted it to, they all know now, so you got what you wanted...in a roundabout sort of way." He reasoned, failing to stop a grin.

Prue just grunted and her other two sisters grinned with him, while Leo and Piper looked at each other in confusion.

"Alright, how do you figure into all this?" Leo asked, looking very confused.

Prue let out an audible growl that made him retreat from her slightly.

"Confusion people." Piper said, looking at her son for support.

Chris looked at his aunt in pity.

"Are those marks because of what happened?" he asked.

Prue grunted and nodded.

"Oh. Sorry." He said sheepishly.

"Prue...?" Paige asked worriedly.

"Oh we wont get anything out of her until her blood pressure goes down." Phoebe said, smiling at her big sister.

Prue grunted again and they all laughed.

"Can someone explain whats going on, and go and get my other son?" Piper asked.

Leo nodded and headed to get Wyatt while the others headed downstairs.

XX

A while later the entire family, including a destamped Wyatt, were in the living room as Prue and Chris explained everything that had happened.

"Thank you for being there for him Prue." Piper her said, her arms around Chris, who was resting his head on her shoulder.

"You're welcome Piper. But don't think you're getting away with being so mean to my nephew." She said scornfully, and both Piper and Leo looked down in shame.

Prue then sent Chris a discreet wink, and he giggled a little.

"I'm sorry mom." He said as she raised her head again.

Piper looked down at him in confusion.

"What for honey?" she asked, bewildered.

"For causing all this." He said quietly.

Piper looked at her little boy and shook her head slowly, tears filling her eyes.

"You've got nothing to be sorry for." She said, her voice betraying her tears.

"Aww mom don't cry, that makes me cry!" Chris protested and she cuddled him tightly.

"We on the other hand have a lot to be sorry for...me in particular." Leo said sheepishly.

"Yes you do. You and your dearly beloved are both in the bad books." Prue said, a small part of her privately enjoying kicking them while they were down.

"Aunt Prue..." Chris scolded lightly, and she grinned.

"She is right though. I think we've all done a lot of bad stuff." Phoebe said regretfully.

"Yeah me too. If I had told you all..." he said sheepishly, and Prue opened her mouth triumphantly.

"If you even think of telling my son 'I told you so' I will make sure your next karmic life you will become a dung beetle just like me." Leo warned, and Prue shut her mouth reluctantly, and Chris smiled at his father, who smiled back shyly.

"Oh alright. If I cant boast that I was clearly right all along, I had better be off. It's my turn to do the tea." Prue said, getting to her feet.

She hugged Piper as she got up.

"Thank you for looking after him and being there for him when we weren't." She said thankfully.

"You're quite welcome sis. He's a great kid like Wyatt." She said as they broke apart.

"Thanks aunt Prue, for everything." Chris said, hugging her lovingly.

"It's alright sweetie, you can come to me any time. I'll always be watching over you." She promised.

"It's great to see you again sis." Phoebe said hugging her big sister.

"Its great seeing you too Pheebs." Prue said, smiling.

"Bye Prue. Come back soon." Paige said, hugging her big sister.

"I will don't worry." She said, hugging the sister she barely knew.

"Bye Prue. Thanks for everything with Chris." Leo said, hugging his sister in law.

"You're quite welcome. Even though you and Piper are still in the bad books." She said with a grin.

She then picked Wyatt up and kissed his forehead.

"You be good. Dont give your brother a hard time." She said, and handed him to Phoebe.

"Bye guys." She said, waving and smiling as she disappeared.

Prue vanished and they all sat back down, Chris wrapped tightly in his mother's embrace, as his dad sat beside him, his brother in his arms.

"I've had a long day." Chris stated simply and they all laughed.

"That you certainly have baby." Piper said fondly, and Chris wriggled further into her embrace and rested his head on her shoulder and closed his eyes.

"Poor little guy. He's tired out." Phoebe said fondly, looking at her nephew.

"So's our other little guy. I think being stock taken was too much for him." Leo said wryly as Wyatt yawned.

Paige then let out a big yawn herself.

"I think we all are. Dealing with family issues, turning evil, our nephew having to save us, our dead sister coming for a visit...it's very tiring." She said, stifling another yawn as she did so.

Phoebe smiled and nodded at Piper, who'd fallen asleep, resting her head against Chris', both of them sleeping soundly.

Leo smiled at his sleeping wife and son and gestured to Phoebe and Paige while picking Wyatt up.

"Time for bed for you two as well. And you little guy." He said and followed them up the stairs.

XX

Piper awoke to find that her son, who had been curled up in her arms when she had last stirred, was no longer there. Wondering where he could have gone she headed upstairs, and saw him in the nursery, slumped against Wyatt's cot, his head resting on the bars while his big brother slept soundly in his bed. She walked over and stroked his cheek tenderly to wake him up. He looked at her blearily and she took his hand and led him over to the sleep couch they had in the room which Piper used when Wyatt got ill and Leo wasn't available. She laid against the rest and Chris obligingly curled up into her arms.

"Sorry." He whispered.

"For what?" she asked, stroking his hair from his eyes.

"Waking you." He said as she did so.

"Oh you didn't honey. Why'd you come up here?"

"I heard him moaning so I rocked him a bit and he went back to sleep. Dad's in the loo." He said as Piper pulled the cover on top of the two of them.

"You're a good brother honey. And an even better son." She said, nuzzling him lovingly.

"Thanks mommy. I wont fail you you know." He said as he closed his eyes, referring to finding out who was after his brother.

"You never could fail me baby." She said lovingly, stroking his hair absently.

"I love you mommy." He said as they snuggled up together.

"And I love you too baby, with all my heart." Piper told him as they drifted back to sleep.

XX

Leo exited the loo, feeling relieved.

"I would not go in there if I were you." He warned as Phoebe came out from her room.

Phoebe looked into the bathroom and wrinkled her nose.

"You know thats a good thing about you not staying down here. No more late night pollution." She said teasingly, and Leo grinned.

Paige then beckoned them as she poked her head around the corner, pressing a finger to her lips as she did so. They went to her, to see Wyatt sound asleep in his cot, and Chris curled up and sleeping soundly in Piper's arms.

"Aint that sweet?" she whispered, and the other two nodded.

"You going back up there?" Phoebe asked.

Leo looked at his family and shook his head.

"No. I've finally realised that I belong down here." He said, smiling as he did so as he admitted his feelings.

"Oh good." Paige said happily.

"And besides, if we have that little guy coming along...I reckon Piper and I should do it properly. And from what you lot told me, he deserves a dad. I'm going to make sure he gets one." Leo said, nodding at Chris.

"Good. See you in a bit." Phoebe said and she and Paige disappeared, while Leo entered the nursery.

He kissed Wyatt, Chris and Piper on the forehead before sitting in the chair and pulling a spare blanket onto himself. A few minutes later Phoebe and Paige entered with their duvets and nestled into them in the soft area where Wyatt played with his toys.

Chris woke up a little and looked around, and saw his aunts, his brother, his dad and his mom all around him. He smiled. He had his family back together. Smiling, he cuddled into Piper, who nuzzled him a little unconsciously and went back to sleep.

**Well I'm pooped!**

**As promised here is the mammoth Charmed one shot. And it is officially the longest thing I've ever written as one part. **

**I hope you enjoy. Chris was originally meant to be blown up by Piper but I felt so bad when she kicked him out I couldnt bring myself to do it. And there's a couple of hints in here as to what happens in the future stories I intend to tell. There should be more notes here, but I cant remember everything that happened, and besides the site is taking ages because this is so big :P**

**So if there are any troubles please ask, and if not, please read and review! Hope you enjoy!**

**P.S I cant wait for the Charmed Comic, looks good from the stuff on the Charmed wiki!**

**And next up I will do more of Crushed, never fear! So until then, please read and review!**


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